


Spores

by ech0ux



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Blood and Gore, Explicit Language, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Male/Male, Rebellion, Violence, bloody homos, homos everywhere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-03-12 06:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 62,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3347708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ech0ux/pseuds/ech0ux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Call him an anarchist, a renegade, a threat, a heathen, a killer. Zexion, fueled by pride and a seething rage boiling too close to the surface, has never been one to conform to lies. At an age too young, he was taught the truth the government had been hoarding all these years from the millions of people it all but slaughtered. Now, as he encroaches on twenty, he's put his innate ability to reap destruction to the test. Bites and bullets can't kill him, and a flame burning this hot is bound to leave a wicked burn.</p><p>Art by rainbowd00dles can be found on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this since mid-2014 and I can't believe it's taken me this long to post the first chapter. More notes at the end.

Those who respected him called him an anarchist. Those who feared him called him a renegade. And those who not only feared him, but feared his presence among those already at the critical point between obedience and rebellion, called him an immediate threat to the greater good. He, in return, called the latter group totalitarian jockstraps and cowards, hidden safely behind fortified walls and Special Forces; which were no more than a group of the most dehumanized pieces of shit in heavy combat gear, willing to put that ominous red dot between your eyes if you so much as sneezed within a fifty mile radius of them. Granted you could even manage to get within a hundred mile radius of the garrisoned center of government operations; the outskirts of the place were absolutely crawling with infected.

Before the years had inflicted their truly nauseating cruelty, the identification tattooed on his right wrist used to clearly read “13-6-ZC-665-C.” But months of scratching at his skin with dull scissors, blunt nails, or any object with a feasibly sharp edge had marred the ink’s readability to little more than a pitifully faded ZC. Nonetheless, he knew it was still there, knew what every single number and letter stood for beneath the innumerous white scars from self-inflicted scratches, and the fresh pink scars from where teeth had sunken deeply into his flesh. Thirteen for the carrier identification, six for his threat level, ZC his initials, six hundred sixty five for the camp he’d been assigned to, and lastly C for the type of “camp” it was he’d been assigned to.

That tattoo was the bane of his existence all the years it was embedded plainly beneath his skin for all to see. The ink was comparable only to holding a neon sign, fluorescent and flashing, ‘look at me, look at me! I’m a freak! I’m to blame for all of this!’ The tattoo ended with him in quarantine, locked in a glorified dog crate as they transported his small body on a modified armored truck to the Center for Infectious Treatment Through Discovery; otherwise known to those who were forced there as Hell on Earth. It was a research facility by all definitions, though since the government cared more about actually having a cure than the means used to obtain it, calling the “treatment” inhumane was a gross understatement.

Needles pricking every inch of his skin by drawing out or pumping in, prodding fingers touching the healed bite marks, and wires and tubes going in and out of every orifice were a regular day in Hell. He was used and abused by government scientists too desperate for the cure of mankind’s blight to take notice of the byproduct of their experimentations, and death seemed to be looming over his shoulder with each passing day. At eight years old, a tattoo gun engraved government mandated information into his pale skin like all the other children who were deemed unfit to mingle with society. Children anywhere from teenagers to no more than a few weeks old were yanked from their parents by some sort of bullshit warrant implemented by the ever-so fucked up governmental system. Who knows how many innocent children were torn from their lives and made out to be dead to their parents by lies they had been infected, when in all actuality they were currently being tested on?  Children who barely knew the alphabet were being tested on like lab rats in ways that would’ve made distraught mothers faint, and distressed fathers load their shotguns.

Zexion was psychologically different than most children at the Center, even though his biologics tested out about identical. Where he came from was what set him apart, and the government was threatened by his presence even before he’d seen his first decade. His genetics were mutated in a way that prevented the infection from ravaging him, but it still lingered in his body; seizing every tissue, organ, or platelet with the genetic make-up that wasn’t his own. By making him a host that the virus could thrive off of without changing or killing, he became the embodiment of human resilience, though through that fact remained he remained a danger. The virus’ mutations were decreasing the human population more rapidly than it could be accounted for, and those who were labeled Carriers were the paradoxical line between life and death. 

And as with everybody else who had an ominous thirteen tattooed on their wrist, Zexion had been born a Carrier. Something encoded in his genetics was corrupted, in a way that benefitted his existence, but was a plague to anybody else he’d come in contact with. Unfortunately, the virus, the innumerable deaths it caused, and those resistant against it were all macabre byproducts of government funded scientists dabbling in some very unsavory arts; playing God and throwing away precautions. Some overfunded and overzealous epidemiologist decided to reverse engineer a double-whammy vaccine for the rabies and influenza virus, but by doing so completely defied the laws of nature. The viruses began to borrow traits from one another, becoming airborne and far more contagious than science could have foreseen. It was a medical breakthrough, but the whole project was kept under tight wraps that fueled a deadly ignorance among the general population of innocently oblivious people.

Soon, more and more deadly viruses were added to the revolting mixture; encephalitis, measles, and Ebola to name a prominent few. Science had been disproving God and pissing off those devout individuals since the time of GMOs, and the more the government seemed to embrace the separation of church and state, the smaller the boundaries of testing seemed to be. Vaccines were now child’s play, and the focus was a singular, all-encompassing injection of pure ingenuity to rid the human condition of all its bothersome blights. Churches across the country prayed to their God for an intervention, a stoppage to the secretive labs tucked away where GPS maps showed only empty space. They feared by altering God’s natural path, we, as Americans, were shaking hands with the devil and inviting him into our hearts for an indefinite stay. The prayers rang out from the churches, hymns of praise for an immediate cease to the search for a cure of deadly flus and infections; a corrupted worship of mutual disgust. Religion spit in the face of science, and science spit in the face of God.

If a God was listening, he should’ve answered those prayers. Sent some catastrophic disaster to wipe out the labs, the documented research, and all of the individuals who were investing their lives into the creation of the Super Shot. Unless his plan for destiny was to obliterate the human population, save for fourteen percent that managed to endure the infection ravaging the other eighty six percent of the globe; turning them into mindless creatures whose sole focus was tearing the flesh off of your throat, and licking the fluids from the inside of your esophagus.

That staggering eighty six percent of the population, by late in the year 2022, had encouraged the government to push up concrete walls in small areas of the United States; barricaded by barbed wire and a heavily armed militia trained to have a laser focus and shoot anything that moved. The remaining fourteen percent were scattered in small patches in Colorado, Utah, New York, California, and Florida; states where carriers were locked up in various research centers, and the rest of the population that miraculously survived against all odds were kept caged behind towering concrete walls, and fed an all-you-can-stomach buffet of lies that they were safe because the government was going to protect them.

Human nature made it so those people locked up behind fifty feet of concrete became ignorant to the lies, and clung to each one like an infant to its mother’s breast. They suckled on the milk of corruption, hoping to leech onto some form of comfort as their skin greyed from the dirt and grime, and past times were kicking stones in what was once a busy neighborhood street. It was just as it was before the outbreak had occurred, because nothing was destined to change when men in power selfishly hoarded that power. Corruption thrived off of ignorance, and the government meant to inform and protect its people had neglected their duties in a grotesque display of betrayal. Few people knew the virus was unnatural, and even fewer knew for certain it had been the government’s creation. Those who did know the truth feared more for their safety contained in those walls than out in a barren street where infected could turn them into a human happy meal.

Most people with this knowledge did eventually find their way onto the streets, fleeing. Fleeing from the concrete walls, fleeing from the militia, fleeing from the infected, always fleeing from something. If the government so much as suspected that one of their prisoners trapped behind those concrete walls knew anything, they were booted in the dead of night. Strict curfews with a shoot-on-sight policy prevented any witness to the corruption. It was a twisted system, fully operational, and worked in such a smooth procession; as if it had been rehearsed prior to the world going to hell.

Zexion had watched this happen three times from the dirty window of his family’s nearly collapsed home. The eerie stillness that strangled the life out of the quarantine zones was disrupted by the sound of heavy boots and combat gear shuffling along the dirt streets to some poor soul’s front door, which would be abruptly kicked down, and the residency alerted to the intruders. There would be a mild scuffle, a soft thud, and the ominous sound of heavy footsteps in precise walking patterns. The empty streets would give no threat to the exposure of the cruel treatment of people who were above the government’s crushing rule. Bound and gagged, the individual who could think freely for themselves was hustled across the streets, and then taken to the front gates of the zone, and promptly nudged outside. The binds on the hands were cut and the gag removed, and whatever fate that was to befall them was set in motion.

It was a disgusting mistreatment of innocent people who only wanted to show those women and men, blinded by lies, what a meaningless existence they led trapped like farm animals within these walls. They wanted to force the government to own up to their mistakes, to atone for all the irreparable damage they’d done. But they were smothered, always kept under wraps, and always worth so little to the government that life and death for these people was only a subjective idea; because what power would any man in that high, holy seat remain able to keep if the world knew how misused that power really was?

Easily one of the most horrifying mistreatments was the last exile Zexion witnessed before he was taken from his home. A mother, yanked away from her husband and three kids, fought and struggled against the iron grip on her arms because she couldn’t bear the thought of being taken from her family. In a world like this, family was all anybody had left. Personal possessions were superficial, and survival was the main goal, but one never took a genuine relationship for granted. Whether the relationship was familial, romantic, or otherwise, being so forcefully torn from it was a fate worse than to be left dying and bleeding in the streets as infected torn out your tendons and sampled your stomach contents.

The children of the woman being torn away ran screaming and crying after their mom as the father tried to hold them back. The patrol escorting her felt no remorse, had been so desensitized that their only focus was to contain the chaos before anybody else took notice. The moment those kid’s bare feet hit the dirt, their young bodies dropped to the ground like weights sinking to the bottom of a shallow pool. A singular, small hole in the center of their foreheads dribbled blood down their unwashed skin; staining the ashen ground a tormented crimson. The woman’s gag prevented her from screaming as her body went limp in the guard’s hold, and they promptly dragged her away from her lifeless twins; leaving her husband catatonic as he held a small, redheaded girl to his chest. Kairi, her name was, and she used to be known as the Princess of Heart by all the elderly folks because she would deliver flowers to people who seemed saddened by whatever cause. Zexion still had one dried and pressed between the pages of his favourite book.

After the events of that night, Kairi and her father were seldom seen. Flowers grew rampant on small patches of grass, and the undying light of a little girl seemed to have finally perished beneath the crushing weight of life as it was now. There was no funeral for her brothers, their bodies were simply dumped outside the wall with all of the rest of those who took their final breaths therein. Nobody, aside from Zexion, knew of what had transpired that night, and nobody cared to ask anymore. Zexion missed Kairi, and he went as far as to pick a few flowers and put them outside of the door to her family home. The Princess of Heart was now heartbroken, and rumor was the distraught father went criminally insane and had killed his daughter and then himself a few nights later. Zexion didn’t want to even think for a moment that was true, but when Kairi’s house was taped off and set up for demolition, he knew.

Witnessing an entire family just crumble and fall apart like that was only fuel to the fire raging deep inside of Zexion. He hated the world, hated how humans had devolved so far down into the depths of apathy that nobody cried when grown men killed children. Nobody cared when innocent people were kicked out of the safe haven to be feasted on by infected because they could see though the veil put over everybody’s eyes. Nobody fought back when the government took their children and told them that the kid had been infected even though they had never seen anything besides the inside of the quarantine zone. Nobody thought for themselves anymore because it was just easier not to. With a world based around imminent death, feelings and rational thought processes were greatly undervalued.

Zexion’s guardians tried to console their adopted son, warning him of the dangers he possessed within himself if he kept on with this thinking. It was a shot straight through his heart that his own parents would want him to smother himself; become as brainless as those things that meandered outside the walls. He wanted to rebel against them, to scream to them that this whole set up was wrong. He couldn’t wrap his brain around the notion that nobody else saw fault in such a broken system. It was like being in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t love you, but you cling to them anyways because you’re too afraid of being alone. His hatred was unjustly displaced because he couldn’t risk being taken from his parents again; especially by the government.

For two more years, things continued this way. Zexion could feel the lasting effects of the perpetual state of anger he was in, though his external mask hid his emotions away. Locked within the deep recesses of his own mind, the world seemed to pass by, undisrupted, as he patiently waited for the bubbling of a rebellion. He was a pretty well secular individual, but futile prayers were sent to the heavens for a coup d’état. Noting came, day after endless day, and the silence outside drove a little boy into silent, premature adulthood.

His parents noticed this, noted the way he locked himself away inside of his head; never expressing emotions outright. An eight year old should be outgoing, full of some kind of light that urges a dying world to keep going. But with Zexion, that light had never truly been there. He was absent from childhood when his birth parents were exiled from their previous quarantine zone in Utah. Zexion’s mother had seen through the lies, and had exposed them to his father. They kept it under wraps until their first and only son was born, because with that small being in their arms, they had a reason to fight. Instinct like that cannot be taught, it was merely the product of headstrong individuals who have accounted for their priorities, and the general welfare of those around them.

At five years old, Zexion held a pistol for the first time in his tiny, grasping hands. His father taught him how to hold it upright, how to train his crystalline eyes to hone in on a target. His mother demonstrated the proper way to brandish a knife, to hold a bow, and to return a drawn arrow to its quiver. By the time he was six years old, survival was second nature; he was born a fighter with unwavering determination. His desperation to learn to shoot betrayed the idea he was merely a little boy, and it did his parents so proud. They drilled the proper techniques into his head day after day, training him to be the next spark to start the fire of rebellion.

But the government had other plans for such a ‘critical threat’ family. Mid-September brought cool temperatures, and the Utah quarantine zone was picked through with a fine tooth comb. Six families found their way into burlap sacks or with binds on their wrists and gags in their mouths, until they were tossed into the barren land outside the wall and told to keep their nonsense to themselves. Nobody cared if those eighteen people lived or died, all they cared about was keeping the truth separate from the lie. The kindling of rebellion fizzled out as they stood, wide eyed, on the opposite side of the wall that few had known anything else of. The concrete monstrosity loomed over them, and patrol guards stood aimed and ready in case anybody attempted reentry. Some people were nudged in the back with an M-16 assault rifle, urged with threats of death if they didn’t get walking.

One brave woman tried to stand up for herself, to cry outrage, and demonstrate the true brutality shown towards people. At the moment she lunged at the guards, crows screamed and flew from their perches in the oak trees, sending browning leaves cascading in a shower as a gunshot startled them. The woman’s body dropped to the ground, limp and lifeless, as the patrol held the gun tightly in his hands with a cold smirk touching his chapped lips. The soulless bastard teased, taunted; begging another of the remaining seventeen to “make his day” or “give him some more target practice.”

Not one person there could cry then, they could mourn when the company was only their small family of rejects. A young girl, nameless, no more than seven or eight, with dirt smeared over nearly every inch of her exposed skin leant down to her mother’s body and unfastened a gold chain from around her bloodstained neck. A boy, not much older than she, took the delicate chain from her thin, shaking fingers, and fastened it snugly around her neck before taking her hand in his and turning her towards the crowd of people. They looked at each face in the crowd, the light from their green eyes faded, and their blond hair caked with filth. Neither had tears in their eyes, only a thin-lipped neutrality written on their faces. With a deep breath, they began walking, slowly at first but soon with more deliberate steps at an encouraging pace.

It was as if they were playing a humorously large-scale game of follow-the-leader, the lone conductors in a troupe of the most dejected people the world had to offer. One by one, each person followed in a single line behind the next, and the concrete walls began to fade as the sound of footsteps broke the silence of the outside world in a shattering rendition of Moses parting the red sea.  Zexion peered between the legs of his parents, watching as everything he’d known faded behind him; the last sight he caught being a group of two or three soldiers kicking and jumping atop the woman’s body. Their whooping shouts echoed for what seemed like miles, and each person in line shuddered visibly. Zexion felt something hot drip over his heart, and with each step, it hardened until his chest held a graveyard; haunted by the ghosts of the innocents he couldn’t save. Responsibility tugged at him, and he vowed with a sweeping declaration to bring hell and high water to break the dam of ignorance in every corner where it still stood proudly.

 


	2. Fleeing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New beginnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive any typos, I honestly didn't comb through as much as I should have.

Eleven years had elapsed since Zexion had not felt the intimidating glowering of a concrete wall. Spending so much time in exile and isolation, he’d grown out of his naiveté, and the skin encasing his vacant heart was all but bullet proof. Zexion had learned to self-sustain, and to rebel like his birth parents would have wanted for him and themselves. While it ended with him fending for his life on the streets, he had sparked a fire that was quick to consume the whole of a broken society. The last he had heard, the Florida quarantine zone was overthrown in a glorious upheaval of the men in power, and the streets were soaking up corrupted red with the spilt blood of the militia. People ruled themselves once more, and the casing around Zexion’s heart cracked like an imperfect egg. It made a bit of colour dribble back into his lifeless eyes, though not enough to restore any of his humanity.

Now at the ripe age of barely twenty, Zexion had spent years killing authority figures inexplicitly and doing so with a probable cause. His goal was no longer just survival, it was focused on a purging destruction. Each zone was a target for him; and he’d see it through to get there no matter how many infected or authority figures he needed to cut down to size in the process. Years and years of pent up anger were finally finding a viable use, and Zexion’s blood boiled hot to the surface.

The land which he walked was as downtrodden as it was inside the zones, having been the testing ground for purgatory bombs; dropped there as a futile attempt to remove the unnecessary population. When he was nine, after watching a charcoal skinned infected drop to the smoldering ground with a nauseating gurgle and the crunch of its weak bones, he had collapsed to his knees on the caked earth; retching violently as his guts tried to force themselves from their prison in his body. For a month, his humanity tormented him with each fallen infected; that is, until he’d found himself nursing a deep bite mark along the left side of his jawline that poured blood down his throat and made his knees weak. It was an immediate wake up call, and Zexion felt his humanity flee like the birds in the trees who caught wind of a distant gunshot.

As the memory played around in the folds of his brain, his right hand subconsciously touched the healed marking on his face, and Zexion sighed as the tips of his calloused fingers rose and fell slightly over the hills and valleys of the imprint of some infected bastard’s teeth permanently casted in flesh. “Man,” He spoke aloud to the nighttime air, stopping his fast walking pace to cast a dejected gaze up at the stars dancing flamboyantly in the blanketed sky. His hand fell from his jaw, sliding down his neck to touch the metal chain resting softly against his dirt coated skin that was sticky from a previous sprint. “I wonder if you two are watching me. I doubt highly that heaven exists, but you two better fucking be there, living the lives you didn’t get here on this hell plane.” Emotional displays were so few and far in between for Zexion, he indulged himself by letting the dam break just enough so he could put down his sanity and speak with the stars when fueled by memories locked up in the Alcatraz of his mind. The little pinpricks of light seemed to try and reach down to caress his face, and he only wished they’d kidnap him from this barren wasteland he called home.

But the responsibility that he held inside of himself, the obligation to repair all that had been broken or damaged, it forced him to stay grounded. His head never saw the clouds, and his dreams never gave him more than a repeated sequence of memories vivid enough to be called a nightmare. It made his pull nervously on the small bun resting loosely atop the crown of his head; a tic he’d developed over the years as his hair never ceased its growing. He refused to cut his own hair, considering the only pair of scissors he had were rusted and dull; used only for a blunt stabbing into the eyes of infected that came just a little too far into his personal bubble.

“Ah, shit. I have got to stop doing that.” He murmured to himself when his fingers had caught a strand of hair tucked awkwardly beneath the rubber band keeping the bun intact, the pulling sensation on his scalp making him cringe. There was a name for this thing he did, trich-something-or-other, which he’d been scolded by his ‘doctor’, Vexen, for doing when he was locked up in the Center. They called him a manic, a nutcase, a boy who kept a little bit too much insanity locked up in himself. The hair pulling was supposedly a manifestation of his anxiety, but Zexion never considered anxious to be one of his emotions. He liked to classify himself as somewhere on the spectrum of angry and stoic, which left him at a loss when he found himself smiling. It was an occurrence so rare, the muscles in his face felt almost sore afterwards; like he’d been lifting weights with his cheeks.

Letting his thoughts roam like a patrol guard over the prisoners held captive in each cell in the Alcatraz of his mind pulled focus away from his place on the Earth, and the low rumbling in the distance caused a whiplash turn of his head. He’d been daydreaming, reminiscing on bitter fruits to sate the sour hunger chewing on his tongue, but his scent had been busy making love with the wind. It carried on like pollen in the summer, and the pure delicacy that was his life essence oozed over the land; lighting the aura around him like a fireworks display over a New York City skyline. He’d been sought out, and his own stupidity landed him on a silver platter with a large sign that read, ‘EAT ME.’

“You have got to be _fucking_ kidding me.” He spat, hand reaching for the pistol resting snugly in its holster against his thigh; removing the gun and turning on the flashlight he’d haphazardly attached to the top in a crude duct tape construction. Zexion forced his petit frame a whole one hundred and eighty degrees behind himself, but he was unfazed by the hellish sight approaching. “I can’t catch a break. Jesus…”

Their gait was sloppy yet a humorous contradiction of lethargically determined, each figure unaware of its morbid appearance. A pack, four at the most, had been tailing him since he’d entered their domain in an abandoned building ten blocks back, and their sense of direction was held captive by Zexion’s hot blood. The pink heart kept safely beneath the cage his ribs created beat wildly, a living compass that their hunger swallowed whole. His essence dragged their lifelessness by the throats to him, and Zexion sighed in the most unamused way.

“You ugly fucks do _not_ understand boundaries. Christ alive, I hope when you weren’t infected and you had a romantic partner you gave them space. You know, maybe I would be a little more tolerant of you shitbags if you didn’t try to crack my chest open like a crab leg. I don’t think human jerky would taste all that nicely with a side of melted butter.” Zexion’s own bitterness made him laugh, and he barely registered how crazy he would have looked speaking to a pack of mindless, infected individuals who probably lacked the organs to even hear what was coming out of his mouth. He spoke to the monstrosities like they were old rivals where one party had unearthed the hatchet to use as the murder weapon for the other party’s demise.

The pack was headed by a male, standing at roughly six foot five, who dwarfed Zexion’s own height by a foot and an inch. He wasn’t intimidated by the towering lunk, but he couldn’t help but feel the hunger that had been gnawing at his stomach walls for the last day fading as the wounds became obvious. The clothes he had died in were barely left intact, save for the scraps of some sort of denim clinging to his muscular legs by mere threads. “Oh my good fucking god, buddy. Lay off of the steroids, would you? Do you have an idea how bad they are for your health?”

A guttural howl erupted from the infected’s mouth, forcing black blood over what little chunks remained of his lips. It hit the ground with an audible plop, taking along the last bit of his mangled lower lip on the plummet down. The teeth markings around his mouth gave way to the notion he’d been a meal before a leader, and the raw exposure of gums and rotted teeth had Zexion subconsciously running his tongue over his own teeth to ensure they were all still there. It was obvious his jaw was dislocated, hanging slack at an awkward angle with the stump of his tongue drooping over the remaining teeth nestled in his black gums. His mouth was little more than a gaping hole of rot and black goo that used to be some sort of bodily fluid, oozing the unmistakable scent of decay and bad blood. Bones of his hollowed face stuck out from where the skin had rotted away, peeling off as the sun ravaged what remained of him in his reanimated death. Bones in other parts of his body jutted out at impossible angles, showing off the hollowed remains of his innards. Veins dried up and caked along the walls of their skin, like icing left out too long on a warm summer night. From his bare midsection came his drooping intestines, brown-grey and rotted through, hanging like lifeless snakes from a gaping hole in his abdomen where the flesh had simply ceased to be. Flies buzzed in and out of the holes, feasting on the dry fecal matter and organ rot.

Zexion narrowed his eyes, holding his arm up at forty five degree angle, aiming the barrel of his gun right between the eyes of a lumbering dead man. His eyelids were no longer intact, eaten away by time, relentless sun, age, and what appeared to be a set of jagged teeth. The hair atop his head was black and patchy, like plots of a rotten crop thriving in a dead field. A pair of shriveled eyes still had remnants of red streaks of lightening against what had once been white but faded to a sickly grey, and Zexion felt no immediate remorse when his finger squeezed the trigger.

With a detestable pop, the frail bones of his head shattered and outwardly combusted; showering his lackeys in a gruesome rain of black, rotted brain, and sharp skull fragments. A hard thud resounded in the dead night air as the dusty ground accepted the infected’s body like a mother welcoming her child home. The remaining three seemed unconcerned as their leader fell, and the rolling of black, languid tongues in rotted mouths dripping with equally rotten blood reminded Zexion of a feral dog honing in on its prey. The light from the flashlight dimly illuminated his targets, but he had no trouble taking a few shots in the dark.

One by one, the bodies of his stalkers fell with hard thuds to the even harder ground, and the sound of their frail bones breaking at the impact resonated in his highly trained ears. Without the slightest flinch, Zexion listened to the sound of his heart swell like a balloon in his ears, feeling the muscle throb angrily in his chest. The scent of death began to envelope the scent of decay, making his head swim in a nauseating chaos of disgust and pity. He felt pity not for the death of these monsters, but for the people they used to be. Long before the days of humans rotting from the inside out, before the crooked jaws and rolling tongues that were tools in a violent hunt carried out like clumsy lions for the next thing with a heartbeat they could tear into shreds. In his mind, these people no longer existed, and the brain rot that seized their body was the only thing left standing. Each person’s body, or what was left of it, was a desert and a funeral; something along the lines of a very dry open casket that reeked of a hot, macabre rot. Sickening as it was, Zexion had forgotten how to mourn the lost lives of strangers he put to the dirt. He felt only the casing around his heart grow with layers of anger, and the deep boiling in his blood that threatened to eat through his skin in a way reminiscent of a parasite.

Stepping back from the mound of broken limbs, rotten flesh, and pooling fluids oozing from gaping holes, Zexion took a breath through his nose, lowering his pistol. The night air ruffled the bun atop his head, like a comforting parent soothing him after his indiscretions. Having such a hard exterior made him vulnerable inside, and after letting his thoughts wander to his dead parents, even if only for a moment, had opened a door he thought had been locked almost a decade ago.

“You’re all alright now.” Zexion spoke, his voice carrying an abysmally dead resonance. “Just stay fucking dead this time though. I’m a little short on ammo from dealing with you and your friends from that building about ten blocks back.” He picked the pistol back up, unloading the clip and checking how many rounds remained therein. “Damn. Fifteen rounds yesterday and I’m down to nine today. Let’s hope only eight more of these assholes show up. I’ll need one to put in myself at this rate if I keep letting my thoughts get the best of me.”

Zexion loaded the cartridge back into his gun, though kept it aimed and at the ready. A quick turn on his heel put the piled up bodies behind him, and the flashlight illuminated a path a couple of feet in front of him. He didn’t really need the extra light after having been attuned to bumps in the night, but it was almost comforting. Soft tufts of clouds began to roll in, smothering the stars beneath their suffocating thick blackness. The moon was casting only a few streaks of light over its kingdom, and Zexion sighed, dejected. “Please, if a God is listening, hold back from pissing on the Earth. At least until I can find a spot to bunker down and not get killed.”

The thick heel of Zexion’s worn combat boots dug into the ground as he rubbed his shoe against the dirt, and he pursed his lips with an uncertainty that had been far more regular for him lately. He barely knew where he was in the United States anymore, but he had a feeling it was somewhere close to New York; perhaps Pennsylvania or Ohio. There was no GPS anymore, Siri wasn’t around to ask for directions, and the only compass he had was sitting in the bottom of a river somewhere after having to cross rushing rapids and maintain the dryness of his gun. Even if he was going in circles, he had to reach some sort of civilization sooner or later. Statically, only a hearty ten percent of the remaining population lived within the zones, so that left another four percent up in the air. He hadn’t met anybody else in all the time he had been fleeing, but Zexion was damn well bound and determined to meet another uninfected living soul.

The wind blew again, but this time more forcefully, and carrying the thick scent of impending rain. It was a fragrant musk that used to give him hope as he was trapped behind the concrete walls, but now it gave him only an urgent sense of dread. He needed to run, and fast.

Zipping up the used-to-be navy coloured bomber jacket that hung around his lanky frame, Zexion dug his heel into the barren ground before forcing his lithe legs to carry the weight of his upper body forward. Like a bullet from a gun, he sped off into the darkness; the glow from the flashlight bouncing between his feet like a child playing around his parent’s legs. Zexion had no time think about that, or the burn in his thighs, or the fire in his lungs. He had only the time to hone his razor sharp focus, scanning every passing shadow and figure; listening for the wailing gurgle of any infected as he passed. The last thing he needed was another pack looking to make him a late night lunchable.

The nighttime sky darkened further, and Zexion cast a hardened cerulean gaze upwards. “Fuck off, stupid clouds! Hold it for just a little while longer. Don’t you dare piss on me.” As if to taunt him, to smite his threats, a single droplet fell from the sky and hit him square on the cheek.

“Fuck you too.” He nearly spat, shaking his head as he pressed his legs harder, forced his body to go that much faster. The darkness submerged his head, and he was in the deep end; drowning. Nothing stood out to him, no life ring was thrown his way. It was an endless valley of death looming around every corner, and the light from his flashlight flickered. It was as if the night had a sole purpose to frighten away every ounce of light, and the world had become a domain of perilous darkness.

Nothing was right with the world, but that wasn’t even the half of it. The infected were one thing, one manageable thing with the right amount of bullets and stoicism, but the fact these memories were becoming exposed like a broken nerve ending gave Zexion a shock every time he even thought about his parents. They had been absent from his mind, save for a small passing touch when a birthday or holiday approached, but lately it was a regular thought he had. Was this a looming undertone he would join his parents soon?

For the second time in a less than twenty four hours, Zexion let his guard down as his focus wavered, and suffered the consequences. The toe of his boot caught on a railroad track he hadn't seen, considering the undeniable fact he hadn’t been paying a smidgen of attention to where he was running, and the force of his upper body didn’t stop even as his legs did. Similar to the dynamics of a car accident, the force propelled his lithe frame forwards and across the tracks; dropping him hard against the loose stone as his ankles caught the metal of the second track.

The sharp edges of the stones dug into his face and arms; leaving minute gashes in his flesh and small tears in the fabric of his jacket. A sharp yelp burst through his mouth when his breast bone connected solidly with the dirt. His body came to a screeching halt at the impact, and the dust from the cracked ground settled around his sprawling limbs in a delicate shower; the small cuts fluidly dribbling crimson that soon became flecked with dirt. The deep pain in his chest made him force a breath in, which he coughed out in a heavy exhale. His hands had taken quite a bit of damage, and the ground drank in every bit of blood the seeped from the slices on his palms.

“Fuck…oh, fuck….” He coughed out, pressing his hands down and pushing his body up into something resembling a cobra, then drawing his legs inwards until his weight was resting on his tailbone. “Ah, ow, damn…” Zexion drew his knees up, resting his elbows onto the protruding bones, and dropping his head down between his legs. “Ow, oh god, ow.”

Breathing hard, desperately trying to suck oxygen back into his shocked system, Zexion coughed violently to force the shock out. He wasn’t exactly quiet about his fall, and felt the true lack of grace he possessed. Above him, thunder growled viciously, and the barreling rain that followed was soon dumped upon his head like a freezing bucket of water. It only added to the shock, and the shivering that ripped through every disc in his spine yanked goose bumps up from below the surface of his skin, and made the sounds around him go hollow and unearthly.

Not far in the distance, a familiar wailing echoed with the thunder, yet Zexion could barely manage to pull himself from the ground. His breathing was erratic, his heartbeat pounded deafeningly in his ears, and the entire wound seemed to stop in front of him. His bloody hands clutched against the side of his head, and soon the sounds of wailing and heavy steps were silenced by the familiar ‘pop, pop’ of a 9mm. A thud echoed in stereo, and Zexion’s arm was soon a handle used to yank him to his feet.

“Fucking move!”

An unfamiliar voice cut through the haze in his ears, and Zexion barely had time to register he was on his feet and sprinting against his will as a large hand pulled his body along like a rag doll. Rain soaked him though, and his boots sloshed nosily against the sopping ground.

“Hold on!” The voice commanded, and a loud metallic grating sound echoed around; followed by more guttural wailing. “Alright, get in. Now! Now!”

Without thinking, Zexion grabbed onto a slippery metal edge, hoisting himself up with hands chewn to hell by railroad stones. The inside was a rusty orange, lit dimly by an old fashioned lantern burning playfully in the corner. The metallic wailing echoed again, and Zexion pieced his location together. He was in a boxcar.

The rain smacking the roof sounded like a chorus of drummers out of sync, and Zexion found himself sinking slowly to the cold, rusted floor.

“Hey!” His head dropped between his knees again, and Zexion groaned; almost unresponsiveness to the directness shouted at him. “How old is that fucking scar?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this didn't come across as rushed because with my writing certain things can get tedious. Leave a kudos or review if you feel inclined to do so; and the next chapter update will definitely not be as speedy as this.


	3. A Name to a Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The feeling of home and a name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is by far the longest of all three published so far, but don't quote me on it.

The air surrounding Zexion was tainted with the thick scent of aged rust, the unique and vaguely familiar rankness of oxidized iron plagued by years of moisture and neglect. Beneath the angular bones of his ass, sharply uneven edges dug into the seat of his tapered cargos, and he briefly wondered if tetanus was still something he need be concerned with at a time like this. The off kilter thoughts racing around his mind were almost drowned out by the hollow emptiness filling his ears, which had been slowly lifting as a heavy fog does, only to be replaced with a sharp ringing that jarred his vision. An unfamiliar voice echoed around him, the words indistinguishable as the ringing screamed at him like an impatient child demanding attention, and the rain on the metal roof sounded as if the sky were dropping golf balls instead of droplets. Still in recovery mode, Zexion found himself head underwater in the sea of overwhelming sounds, and his shocked body was racing the eminent sensory overload to return to a pattern of homeostasis.

Letting out a soft groan, Zexion felt his body tipping backwards as the force of his minimal weight resting entirely on his ischium created an uncomfortable numbness in his legs that upended his balance. The metallic whining, prominent where uneven surfaces settled, filled the atmosphere like an ancient sigh of discomfort, and the ringing began to calm from within Zexion’s inner ears. With his back pressed against the damp wall of the boxcar, he found that sitting on cold metal while soaked entirely to the core ripped convulsion-like shivers out of his delicate frame; and the tips of his fingers ached as the colour of his lips was engulfed by a sickly paleness.

“—ask you again, or I will blow your goddamn brains out!”

Lifting his lids from his eyes, which he hadn’t remembered closing, Zexion fought a losing battle with the deadweight on his face. He mumbled an unintelligible sound, forcing his brain to catch up to his motor skills as the muscles around his face relaxed from the excessive tension brought about when he’d clenched his jaw to brace for impact. In the meantime while he reacquainted his jaw muscles to his brain, cloudy cerulean eyes made a slow ascension to meet owner of the voice.

Instead of a face, Zexion found himself staring down the barrel of a 9mm almost identical to his, sans the shoddy flashlight modification. It shocked him enough he could almost feel a physical flip of a switch activating his sympathetic division, and his muscles seized with a wicked recoil. Poised like a cobra ready to strike, the haze of Zexion’s eyes cleared instantly, showing a defensive, steely glint that left a bitter residue lingering in the back of his mouth. He pressed his tongue harshly against the roof of his mouth, skimming over the ridges and sharp edges of his teeth as his brain fired signal after panicked signal around his body. The ringing in his ears suddenly dissipated into nothing more than a subtle annoyance that was easily overlooked as Zexion’s hearing focused on the minute click of cautious pressure applied to the trigger.

“…Don’t shoot me. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I can assure you I would do you much more good left alive than dead at your hands.”

Zexion’s eyes quivered nervously as he watched the finger on the trigger lessen its stress on the one thing standing between him and this stranger redecorating the boxcar walls; courtesy of Zexion’s grey matter.  His face gave no cues to the inner terror he felt wringing out his stomach, and the lowering of the gun held in an unsteady hand washed a tsunami of relief over his body. His muscles gagged as the parasympathetic division activated, and his body nearly collapsed in a heap of rubberized limbs sick from the tension.

“Tell me then. Everything. Right now!”

Since his eyes had never left the position in which the gun had been cocked, Zexion let his gaze curiously travel up to meet a pair of almond eyes, shockingly teal, and narrowed glaringly down at his small body. Wet silver tresses fell in messy disarray around a pair of hollowed cheeks- from malnourishment or good genetics, it was difficult to tell –that framed an angular facial structure with surprisingly soft compliments to his features. Dirt was melting slowly down his medium tone skin, displaying a previously hidden angry red marking, which appeared to be a fresh bruise forming directly over the apple of the stranger’s left cheek. The most noticeable feature, however, were the arched brows the same sterling colour repeated on his eyelashes, and again in his hair. There was no possible way hair dye had survived this long intact, and in the middle of the world’s ending it seemed pretty farfetched some guy honestly cared enough about his looks to dye his damn eyebrows and lashes.

“Did I stutter? Start talking before I change my mind.”

Putting his hands up, Zexion obediently waved a white flag; which felt uncomfortably abnormal for him. He wasn’t used to compliance, and it’d been quite some time since somebody with a gun to his head actually scared him into a pitiful submission. It made him question nearly everything he stood for, but what other option was left than to experience the sensation of a literal brain burst. His life did actually have some value, which he fully intended to preserve until his objection to reap punishment on the power-whore authorities had been met.

“The bite scar on my face is over ten years old, which is clearly the most obvious elephant in the room. Just so you’re clear, as are the scars on my arms, legs, and shoulders. Some are a little newer, but none of them have been bestowed upon me in the last six months.” Zexion wished he could’ve stated it had been a year, but he was finding himself to be more and more careless, and it was causing him far more trouble than he’d like to admit. “I was part of a group, a rebellion spark back in the Utah Zone. My parents were exiled, and I along with them. By circumstances I do not trust you enough to yet tell, I wound up in the Colorado Zone. I lived with my adoptive parents there for less than a year until this—” Zexion rolled the sleeve concealing his right wrist, displaying the ZC faded below layers of scarred skin. Teeth marks littered his flesh in intricate patterns that crisscrossed in jagged lines, rises and dips in his skin a catalogue of the various stages of tooth rot. “—happened. They took my DNA out of my body and tested on it, and it came back positive. You do know what that means, right?”

The stranger nodded, his damp locks bogged down by the torrential downpour they’d been ravaged by only a few minutes earlier moving around the curves of his face in a way describable only as something along the lines of a messy elegance. “You’re a Carrier.”

“You’re absolutely right I am.” Zexion rolled his sleeve back down, clamping his left hand over the jacket where his knew the tattoo was hiding. “And do you have any idea what they do to Carriers in the zones? Don’t answer that. You do not want to know what they fucking _do_ to Carriers in the Zones. Eleven years ago, I shot my way out. I didn’t need to much shooting, because apparently when you’re a living, breathing, genetic fuck up, people tend to avoid you like you have the plague—because generally speaking, you do.”

“So what then? We breathe the same air and the next thing I know I have to blow _my_ brains out so I don’t become one of those things out there?”

Zexion had to resist the urge to grab this idiot by the throat and give him a twin mark for his opposite cheek. “No, it’s nothing like that at all. If I bite you and break skin, or you decide you’re incredibly thirsty and sample my bodily fluids, then you will get infected. But I don’t plan on anything like that occurring so you’ll be alright.” He sighed deeply, casting his gaze downwards and rubbing anxiously at the back of his neck. This was a rather enclosed space, and Zexion wasn’t one to play well with others. In hindsight though, this was a big deal, meeting this guy. He’d finally found another person outside the zones.

“Shit!” The deafening sound of metal being struck reverberated through the boxcar, and Zexion jerked his head back up to watch as the other braced his hands against the door, dropping his head down between them. His shoulders sagged, and he looked the picture of disappointment and anxiety.

“Slamming on things like that will draw attention I’m not equipped to deal with at the present moment.”

“Would you please shut the _fuck_ up?” The stranger picked his head up, shooting a death glare Zexion’s way. “I don’t care about that. I have enough bullets. I can spare you some. This just sucks!”

“What does?” Zexion raised an inquisitive brow, playing along with the other’s frustrations until he deemed the time appropriate to ask for a handful of bullets so he could be on his merry way. The last thing he wanted to be was trapped in this small spaced with a temperamental time bomb carrying a firearm. “And what did I even do to you, huh?”

“Look, it’s not exactly you, per se. I had a group I was with; AS and Double S.” He sighed pulling away from the wall, turning on his heel, and sinking down to the floor. He drew his knees into his chest, hugging them as he rested his uninjured cheek on the knee caps protruding through his ripped black jeans. “They went out on a scavenge mission together to the town just east of here. We were running just a bit short on food and it never hurts to top off your supplies. I wanted to go with them, but they told me to wait here and guard this shit.” He gestured in a large sweeping motion to their shared space. “It’s been eight days, and nothing. Just a bunch of infected trying to make a meal out of me. Well, and now you, I suppose. But what does it matter? They took most of the remaining supplies we shared.”

“So they just appropriated your shared resources and took off?”

“That’s about the gist of it.” The other groaned and tossed his head back against the boxcar door, clenching his eyes at the impact. “I can’t believe those fuckers would do that to me. If I ever see them again, I’ll kill them. That whole strength in numbers mantra AS used to spit at me I know now is just pure bullshit. I have all right to kill them, I don’t care how scarce the human population is. Traitorous bastards like that are unworthy to live.”

Zexion pursed his lips a moment, chewing on the lower one thoughtfully as the atmosphere sank with the weight of the other’s words. “Since they’re dead men anyways, who exactly are we talking about here?”

“Ah, you know, it’s shitty of me to give up their identities, but who cares anymore? Axel Saintsbury and Saïx Salvaterra. They were my running mates. We ravaged settlements and took whatever we wanted when we found things. We’ve been together for four years, or more than that actually, and they just up and abandoned me. You’d think that when things are this desperate you’d stick to whoever you have. It doesn’t really surprise me though. They were always blowing each other when I wasn’t looking.”

“Oh, so you were jealous?”

“What? No. Fuck no! Not of those assholes. I’m just bitter they bailed, that’s all.” The stranger ran a hand through his hair, grabbing a handful and squeezing to wring out the water as his eyes honed in on Zexion’s face. The inquisitive look he held made the other fidget, and a toneless chuckle passed over a pair of thin lips, lined with miniscule splits from the wear of dehydration. “You sure are jumpy.”

“Well, you _did_ just have a gun to my head. Forgive me if that raised a red flag.”

“Point taken.” He shrugged, standing from the ground and wringing out the white shirt caked with filth that clung to his statuesque frame. “Goddamn, it’s fucking freezing. Aren’t you cold?”

Zexion shrugged, hugging the soaked bomber around his body, attempting to seem nonchalant even as he felt like hypothermia’s next victim. The dampness sunk its cold fangs into his skin, sucking the warmth out like a parasite. “I wasn’t shivering from shock alone.”

“Get your jacket off. I’m sure that’s only making it worse.”

 Pausing momentarily, Zexion’s fingers twitched as he thought about pulling the zipper down. His thoughts instantly raced to the image of his bare arms; the mountain ranges of healed teeth imprints that littered nearly every inch of his skin, the scars from surgery back in the Center, the self-inflicted wounds that betrayed the ink buried beneath layers of skin. What would this stranger think, seeing skin marred to an irreparable, inhuman ugliness that boasted his inability to die—even if it was only externally? He wore each scar like a badge of honour, an acknowledgment to the service he’d paid being alive and arguably well on this Earth.

“Do you want to get hypothermia? Because you’re heading that way now, man.” The other’s voice cut through Zexion’s melancholic worries, and he sighed. He knew better than to sit in sopping clothing, yet here he was, concerned more with aesthetic than survival. It was a brief touch on the days when high school students chose fashion over function, and Zexion missed halls he’d never walk.

“Just don’t stare at me.” He stated in a flat tone, numb fingers grabbing for the zipper on his jacket. The sound of the rain pounding angrily on the roof of the boxcar made Zexion antsy with how deafening it was, and he wished he had an mp3 player to drown out the noise of the world. He wanted to be left alone in the deep recesses of his mind where he could wallow about his life overnight, and after spending a few hours plagued by relentless screaming images from behind closed eyes, he could come back tomorrow as the stoic killer who didn’t stumble over railroad tracks.

The noise from the rain muted the sound of the zipper as it was pulled down, and Zexion felt his muscles seize as the coat parted, exposing the frayed olive coloured tank clinging possessively to his pale skin. Small holes exposing circular patches of skin gave an idea to the material’s wear, and Zexion could feel the grime imbedded into the very fibers of the cloth. He felt over-exposed, and a strange shyness that he’d never really felt had begun seeping cold down his spinal cord.

Zexion could feel the bones of his ribcage jutting out from below the tank top as he reached cautiously behind himself, pulling on the sleeve of his bomber to remove the soaked fabric from his chilled skin. The jacket gave resistance as it was weighted down with water, and it scraped harshly over his skin after it was pried off with the difficulty of rigor mortis. The air inside of the boxcar was dank like an unheated basement, and Zexion could feel himself being subjected once more to series of violent shivers.

Anxiously, Zexion pushed his hands down his arms, feeling the textured ridges accented with the new feeling of goosebumps erupting from just below his skin. He could feel a gaze boring into him, and narrowed cerulean eyes cast a gaze up to widened spindrift running laps down his arms, up again, playing along the jutting collarbone, and down the opposite side. The stare was less judgmental and more mortification, and Zexion’s stomach tightened with annoyance. He was a freak, that he had already established, but he didn’t need such a blatant reminder.

“What did I say before?” His tone cut through the other’s staring like a hot knife through butter, and an uneasy eye contact was established. “I’m going to start charging a fee every time I catch your eyes ogling my scars.”

“Sorry…” The silver haired male mumbled nervously, the warning bite of Zexion’s tone turning him off from his gawking. “I’ve just never seen anything like that.”

“And you’re not going to again. Get your fill now, buddy, because after this I’m not going to play around with how I handle your staring.” Inside, Zexion’s broken mind was screaming at him daily reminders he’d gotten in the Center. He felt the true nature of himself, a Carrier, so wrong and placed like an improper piece on a chessboard. He was the pawn to topple the king, but a broken pawn’s visual representation would be its downfall. He’d always know he was unique, but in a way that only made him ashamed of his past. The badges buried snugly in the layers of his skin suddenly felt like curses, and he wanted out of this carcass and into an indestructible suit.

“—that’s just what I did, and I promise I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Zexion realized he’d missed out on some sort of formal apology, signed and sealed by the stranger sheltering him, and he could only feign disinterested acceptance with a light wave of his hand. “Look, you did it once, we’re cool. Just try and keep your eyes inside of your skull and not grazing my skin like a pasture and I won’t lose my temper again. Just drop it.”

“Right.” The other nodded, unaware he’d gone unheard for however long he’d been rambling an apology. After seeing the skin encasing Zexion, and hearing such a vicious tone spit from his mouth like hot acid, he’d become a little more wary of the shorter, and presumably younger, male occupying his space. “So, what are you then?”

“Me? I’m what you’d call a deus ex machina.” Zexion explained casually like he’d rehearsed the line a thousand times. “The sudden introduction to the story that swoops in and rescues the poor souls with an irony so thick you’d choke on it.”

“Vivid.” The other laughed, kneeling down to a metal crate caked with rust tucked snugly in the corner opposite Zexion. He cracked the lid with force exposing the defined muscles embedded below his skin, and propped the lid up with a shrieking resistance. Both men cringed at the sound, and the stranger waved away rust bits and dust with a free hand. “Fuck. Where is the WD40 when you need it?”

Sitting in the corner in his own dampness, Zexion watched as the other extracted two thick wool blankets from inside the crate; both of which looked to be intact and some unheard of sense of clean. Zexion hadn’t seen an actual blanket that wasn’t in tatters since before his first exile, and he felt a strange motherly warmth blooming in his chest.

“Alright, well, unfortunately Axel and Saïx made off with the sleeping bags, so this is the best I can do for us. The floor is uncomfortable and cold, but I have an extra blanket that I can lay across the middle of the floor where it’s a little smoother.” Zexion was tossed a deep navy blanket that same colour as his bomber, and he hugged it protectively to his chest; as if he feared somebody would rip it from his cold fingers. “Just give me a second to set things up for us. I’m sure you’re tired, and I’ve been on high alert all day so I’m uselessly exhausted.”

Nodding a little too eagerly, Zexion sat stagnant as he nuzzled his face into the scratchy fabric. It was abrasive against the worn skin of his face, but it held a lingering scent of some intoxicating perfume. It was homey, welcoming, and not at all what Zexion had expected to have been handed. The fragrance brought back distant memories of his mother, of the warm bed he slept in as a child; nestled snugly between his parent’s comforting frames. He thought of his mother kissing his forehead and stroking his wispy blond hair, and it was almost disheartening enough to bring angry tears too his eyes. He missed having a home, having a family, and having a living reason to fight through hell every single day.

The rain pounding on the room drifted off to gentle tapping, and the inside of the boxcar hollowed like the inside of Zexion’s barren stomach. He looked up from the blanket to find the other spreading a lumpy looking comforter across the floor, but he bet lying atop that would beat the elevated cement platforms he’d taken shelter in night after restless night. This was the closest thing he’d seen to a bed in almost two years, and it upset him a little he hadn’t been so lucky to find blankets and boxcars.

“There,” The other said, smoothing the blanket out across the floor. “All set. I’m going to wrap myself up and try and catch a few stray Z’s. They’re been pretty sparse this time of the year.”

“You’re telling me.” Zexion said agreeably, setting the blanket aside as he leant forward to unlace his boots and slide them off his feet. His sock, full of holes and caked with filth, were soaking and chilling him. Opting to bear the stink, he set his socks and boots aside to dry; following suit with the damp tank top eating away at his internal body temperature. He stripped himself down further to only a pair of faded blue boxers, deciding he’d rather expose himself than freeze to death in his sleep.

The stranger seemed to have the same idea, and Zexion watched as he laid himself down onto the lumpy blanket; cocooning himself in the blanket. It was almost childlike how fussy he became when tucking the blanket around his body, and his face didn’t relax until he’d fussed enough that every inch of his lanky frame was covered.

Zexion could feel the blanket spread across the floor calling to him, urging him to lay down and sleep. The day’s events wore on him like sins, and going to sleep so comfortably would cleanse him. The irony was thick in the thought, but Zexion couldn’t care less. He was tired, cold, and feeling the points of impact as his body tensed against the dampness.

Like a baptism, Zexion rose from the spot he’d been glued to on the floor, and sank down slowly onto the lumpy surface. It was chilly and uncomfortable, but he was grateful for what he had here. Unfolding the blanket made Zexion suddenly thankful for his lack of height, and he found he could wrap the rough fabric around the entirety of his body. The blanket swaddled around him was like a vacuum seal, and he could already feel some of the lost heat retuning to him.

Zexion made sure to turn his back to the other, his eyes staring blankly at the boxcar wall. He pulled the blanket over his head, drawing his legs into his chest, and enveloped himself in the homey scent and feeling of warmth. His lids fluttered delicately over his tired eyes until he opted simply to close them and relish the moment.

“Hey, are you sleeping yet?”

Cracking an eye with a slight irritation, Zexion looked over his shoulder, sighing. “No.”

“Okay, well, sorry to bother you, but I had a question.”

Zexion felt his body tense as a million thoughts ran through his mind at the simple statement. Anxiety dripped cold shivers down his shoulder blades, oozing down his spine. “Okay.”

“What’s your name?”

Pursing his lips, Zexion mulled the question over; letting it ferment in the air like a fine wine. “Tell me yours first.”

A deep sigh resonated from the opposite side of the room, followed by an indignant, “it’s Riku.”

“Riku, okay.” He said, noting the oddity of the name; though not like his was any better. “Just call me ZC.”

“Are you serious? I just told you my name! Don’t sleight me.”

“That is my name, and I don’t trust you to know the full spelling. Call me ZC, or call me nothing at all, I don’t care.”

“ZC it is then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zexion is a sly bastard and he's very protective of his identity. That'll be explained later on. As always, I hope you enjoyed and leave a kudos or comment at your leisure.


	4. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riku and Zexion have their first actual conversation. Sociability isn't a survival instinct, and Zexion is unfamiliar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear God, I've been wanting to update this work for ages. I have been so incredibly busy with school I haven't had the motivation or time to write. But considering I'm graduating in less than two weeks, I'll hopefully have more time for updates. As always, pardon any typos. I write late at night and act as my own beta. You get the picture.

_“Go fuck yourselves! You inhuman, heartless bastards!” A juvenile voice, cracking like the frail bones of a newborn bird between the strong and unforgiving jaws of a predator, echoed off the high ceilings and impeccably white walls swallowing him whole. Thin, marred fingers gripped resiliently against the metal bars separating him from the men in white lab coats and purple ascots; a sign of their regality over him and his life. Scarred legs thrashed violently against the pair of hands clutching his thin ankles, pulling the body of a child out of a cage made for animals. The inside reeked of urine and stale stomach contents, but he would take the dizzying rankness over the sterile scent of hand sanitizer that dripped off of the men in starchy lab attire._

_“Calm down, child! Somebody, please! Restrain this monstrosity!” Monstrosity. A child who was barely eight years old had been born into the title of a monstrosity. The word stung like a thousand pin pricks to his damaged skin, a dancing flame to lick teasingly over the frayed tips of his short fuse. With a heightened sense of agitation and resistance, thin legs kicked with the force of a young stallion, the bare heel of his calloused foot making a swift contact to the smooth chin of the scientist attempting to pull him from the cage. A sharp crack resounded about the room, sending reverberations into the boy’s foot, and dancing up the fine blond hair on his legs._

_“Let me go! Let me go!” He shrieked angrily as the grip on his legs loosened significantly, the scientist letting go of one of the boy’s ankles to hold against his chin; which dripped with thick crimson from his parted lips. The boy thrashed violently once more, freeing his malnourished body from the grip he’d been fighting against the past ten minutes. “I hope I hurt you!” He screamed, letting his grips on the bars lessen so he could writhe until his bare, bloody feet touched the sterile floor of the lab. It was cold, shockingly so, but it felt like freedom._

_“Why you little—” The scientist dove for the boy, his menacingly large hands swiping him just enough to knock him down. His frail body fell to the ground with the muted thud, and he rolled to the side to duck under a nearby surgical table he could slide beneath easily._

_The man, whose name was printed in dainty letters above the right breast pocket of his coat, fell to his knees to look beneath the table his subject had taken shelter under. His long arm reached in, patting along the floor as he felt for something on the young boy he could grab and withdraw him from his hiding spot. Thin, marred hands searched around in the dusty darkness beneath the table for something he might use to defend himself in a panic, his desperation getting the better of him. A cold handle bit against his palm, and attached to it was a long forgotten scalpel caked with dried blood; a surgical tool misplaced and mindlessly abandoned when a surgery had gone awry._

_The monstrous hand continued to pat blindly around, feeling like a blind predator for its next kill. Thick fingers touched a bare, scarred leg, and latched on as if to take a large bite from him. “I said let me go!” The boy screamed again, bringing the tool down against the hand gripping his leg. The sharp tip tore into the flesh of his attacker’s hand, opening the skin like the peel of an orange. Blood oozed in a morbidly lapping wave, coating the boy’s hands as he pulled the tool out, only to drive it back into the hand gripping him._

_The blade cut through the webbing between his first and middle finger, oozing more blood onto the boy’s pale flesh, and clumping the thickly packed dust coating the floor. “Fuck! Son of a bitch!”_

_Tightening the grip on the boy, the scientist yanked him out with the last of the strength his damaged hand could muster, exposing him to the viciously bright light once more. Unrelenting, the boy drove the sharp blade into the arm of the scientist, creating a red pool on the sleeve of his pristine lab coat. “Ah!” The bloody hand clinging to the boy’s leg ceased gripping him, though he continued to kneel against the sterile tile; smearing thick crimson across the starch whiteness of his coat as he gripped at his arm._

_The boy wasted no opportune moment, and he knew he’d have only a split second to act before he would find himself with a needle in his arm; pumping him full of poison to calm him down. Acting solely on instinct, he stood from the grappling position he’d been lying on the ground in, driving the blade into the thick, vein-ridden neck of his attacker. Blood dribbled down his tanned skin to the collar of his crisp dress shirt, and his eyes went wide._

_“You…you…” He stuttered, gripping anxiously at his neck as the blade was removed from burrowing with the skin of his neck. Neither moved for a moment as the Earth seemed to still around them; the boy and man dripping in blood. Crimson droplets fell from the boy’s arms, splattering against the pristine tile like a rain sent from the deepest recesses of hell. Wide, cerulean eyes met a pair of remorseful caramel, and the scalpel fell from his thin hands, clattering against the white tile as the boy fell to his knees weakly. His brain registered his actions, and the blood soaked fabric wavered, following by the muted thud of a much larger, heavier body hitting the tiled floor._

_“Oh no…” The boy muttered, crawling on his hands and knees to the man’s head, bracing his hands on both sides of his face. His bloody hands clutched the whitened skin, staining the edges of his blond goatee with vibrant crimson. “What have I done..?”_

_The sound of heavy footsteps approaching fell on deaf ears, and only when a taunting voice rang out did the boy take his attention from the man lying unconscious on the floor. “Well, it looks like this kiddo is going to be a problem.”_

_Looking towards the owner of the voice, a swift kick was delivered to his temple, sending the world around him into a swallowing darkness._

 

Zexion awoke with a jolt, his eyelids snapping back like the release of a taut rubber band. His body was stiff from the cold and the tension of sleep, his cerulean eyes unfocused and hazy as his body adjusted to the suddenly conscious state. Zexion let out a soft, distressed groan as he rolled to the opposite side, meeting a curious gaze as he blinked languidly to lift the heavy fog of unconsciousness.

“Hey..?” Riku asked, his arms stopped midway in the process of slipping a worn white tank top over his head. “Are you alright?”

“Mm.” Was Zexion’s curt reply, his voice thick with the lingering remains of unconsciousness and garbled from sleeping while damp and cold. He sniffled softly, clearing his groggy throat as he pushed himself into a sitting position. His hair felt like a disaster, and he could feel a headache forming in the roots of his scalp from the unforgiving pull of the rubber band. Against the cool morning air seeping in through the boxcar, Zexion shivered viciously, remembering he’d been sleeping in only his boxers.

“You might want to get dressed. I plan on bailing from here soon.” Riku said, letting his eyes wander along the subtle rises and dips of Zexion’s body, taking in the jagged edges where his bones protruded beneath the taut skin. “I think you took a bit more damage than I’d anticipated when you ate shit on the tracks.”

“What?” Zexion asked, looking down at his bare torso, and noticing a blueish colour pooling just beneath the skin, and forming a supernova of purple and red hues over his ribcage where the bones were the most defined. His pale fingers tentatively ran over the blooming bruise, wincing just slightly as his fingers contacted the bone. “Well shit.” He murmured to himself, a frown settling deep onto his mouth. The last thing he needed right now was another injury slowing him down.

“Get dressed. It’s cold and damp and you’re going to catch a chill.” Riku jutted his chin in the direction Zexion’s sopping clothes had been messily laid out to dry overnight, where the fabric appeared to have attempted atrophying to the boxcar floor. He sighed at the pitiful sight, wondering if the rainwater had managed to clear out any of the grime nearly sewn into every minute stitch of fabric. It seemed highly unlikely, considering the slight rankness of damp cloth and raw dirt effervescing from the small, pathetic pile.

Begrudgingly, Zexion tossed back the blanket warmed by his body heat, and crawled on his knees to the small pile of fabric. He peeled his clothing from the floor as if he were pulling a band aid off, sighing when the fabric whined with the distinct sound of seam distress. Another harsh shiver rippled through him as the cool morning air washed over every inch of bare skin, and he sighed, shaking out his cargos in hopes when he attempted to dress himself the fabric wouldn’t sand his first three layers of skin off. The cotton seemed to have obtained even more wrinkles than before, which heightened the survivalist aesthetic Zexion had been displaying for the past eleven years.

Standing to his full height, Zexion gave a final shake to the fabric, and made quick work of covering his legs. The rough cotton was starchy and stiff against his skin, but the almost foreign feeling of cleanliness lingered beneath the uncomfortable dankness that had settled into the seams overnight. Zexion huffed a sound of annoyance as his boxers rode up the curve of his ass, and yanked the seat of his cargos down roughly. Behind him, an amused sound echoed through the boxcar, and Zexion whipped his head around to see Riku with a hand poorly covering the smirk on his lips.

“Picking a winner, I see.” A mischievous look edged around the soft features of his face, and Riku couldn’t choke down the laugh passing over his mouth.

Zexion, in a display of entirely mature behavior, shot the other a quick view of his middle finger, only to resume dressing himself. He peeled his frayed tank from the ground next, turning the distressed fabric over in his hands. A few new holes had begun to open the lined stitching, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. The olive coloured fabric was long past its expiry date, but finding clothes was a menial task by the third day of an empty stomach that became almost debilitating when the shakes set in.

Sliding the stiff cotton over his head, Zexion tucked the frayed ends of the tank beneath his waistband, and sank down to the floor once again. He grabbed for his socks, which hadn’t lost any of their putrid tang, and made a quick work of tucking his socks beneath his cargos, and then his cargos into his combat boots. Grabbing for the bomber jacket, now sporting a few rips and tears from his tumble on the rail tracks, Zexion slid his thin arms into the sleeves, and zipped it up to conceal the scars and bruising he felt ashamed of. The less skin this stranger saw, the better.

“Oh, hey, how’re your hands?” Riku asked as Zexion as he pulled himself from the floor, and fidgeted with the zipper on his jacket.

“My hands?” Zexion asked, absentmindedly, holding his palms out and noticing the red cuts and slight bruising from the jagged stones. “Oh, huh. Right, where I tried breaking my fall. Fine, I suppose. They don’t really hurt. I hadn’t actually remembered until you mentioned it just now.”

Riku nodded, and grabbed something off of the metal crate where he’d gotten the blankets from, handing it to Zexion. The shorter male instantly recognized the shoddy duct tape modification, and felt his brows creasing in irritation. Staring at his scars was one thing, but touching his gun? This man was treading on very thin ice. They hadn’t known each other even twenty four hours, and yet here he was, pushing all of Zexion’s buttons.

“You went to sleep with it in the holster. I woke up early and made sure it wasn’t too wet when I realized. Should be fine, but I don’t know how long your duct tape is going to hold up.” Zexion took the gun, turning the cold metal over in his hands as if to make sure Riku’s fingerprints hadn’t damaged the surface. “Oh, and it’s fully loaded now too. I had some extra shots to spare and I figured you needed them.”

Zexion, as if making sure the other held true to his word, popped the cartridge out, examining a full row of shots that had definitely not been there yesterday. “Uh, thanks.” He stated curtly with an awkward cough, tucking the pistol into his holster gingerly. He tried to remind himself not to be too bent out of shape that Riku had manhandled his gun, because he clearly meant no harm if he loaded the damn thing to its full capacity. It still irritated him, but slightly less. Slightly.

“You’re welcome.” Riku said with an indifferent shrug, tucking his own pistol into the waistband of black jeans that were faded by time and wear. The seams were loose and frayed, but the fabric seemed almost as resistant as Zexion’s cargos. Riku had slipped a plain grey pullover on; the fabric stained with spatters and thick patches of back and rusty brown. He ran a hand through his mussed silver locks, attempting to smooth them down. “I have a backpack I’m going to fill with what remaining stuff I have here. Go ahead and crank the door open, would you?”

Zexion nodded, walking over to the rusted handle on the boxcar door, and yanking down with a grunt. The oxidized metal squealed in a resistant agony as the door was pulled on harshly to force it open; the cool morning air awash with rebirth flooding instantly into the stale space. The stagnant air of sleep was soon washed out of the boxcar, and replaced with a refreshing bite that wormed its way beneath Zexion’s layers and made him shiver pleasantly.

 His loose bun bobbed with the playful breeze, and Zexion remembered he hadn’t attended to the rat’s nest atop his head yet. Clenching his teeth, Zexion slipped two fingers beneath the rubber band and yanked, exhaling sharply as the band tore at his scalp. A few loose strands clung to the band, and his hair tumbled gracelessly down to his shoulders. The back of his hair was a mess of split ends, and a few stray curls attempting a futile life at the base of his scalp. His long bangs hung lifelessly across his face, shielding one eye. Zexion felt disgusting with his hair loose, and frowned to himself, praying that maybe one of these days he’d find scissors of some quality to shear off the excess hair.

Running his fingers through his hair once, twice, as he pulled the snarls twisting his locks together free, Zexion wondered why he had to be cursed with such thick hair. He scooped up the long strands with his fingers, pushing the hair in a compact bunch just below the crown of his head. Finger combing the longer locks in the front to assimilate with the back, Zexion twisted his hair around itself into a tight knot, and held it in place by looping the weary rubber band around the slate locks until it was pulled into a tight bun. The shorter bangs in the front hung loosely across his face, with a few stray strands peeking out from the collective togetherness of the lazy updo.

When the grating teeth of a zipper whirred behind him, Zexion turned his gaze just as Riku shouldered a black backpack that made him wonder for a brief moment what it would have been like to carry books and pencils down overcrowded halls to a class he figured would have no real impact on his adult life. He wondered what it would have been like to have friends, actual human bonds, with others who hated the concept of algebraic expressions as much as he, himself, did.  As per usual with him, Zexion caught himself wondering, always wondering, what _if._

“Ready to go?” Riku asked, his teal eyes meeting Zexion for a fleeting moment before gazing out to the fog shrouded landscape before him. “It looks so cliché out there.”

Zexion shrugged, carefully sliding himself over the sharp lip of the boxcar. His feet met the saturated ground with a wet sound; as if the whole world was singular living thing, and the ground were some kind of all reaching viscera, unable to feel but able to give sensation. “Cliché? Oh, you mean the ominous fog that shrouds our looming death in its grasp?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Riku said with an uneasy laugh, hopping easily over the ledge of the boxcar to join Zexion. “Christ, this ground is wet. I hope we aren’t going to have to run.”

“That backpack heavy?”

“Huh? Oh, nah. My shoes don’t have a lot of traction. Wet ground plus slippery shoe equals human happy meal. Zombies like fast food. Gives them a little challenge. Keeps them on their slightly rotted away toes.”

“O…kay?” It came as more of a question than a statement, and Riku simply shrugged his answer in return. Communication was clearly something that could stand for improvement.

“We’re going to get killed just standing here. Why don’t we head towards that town? I’m sure Axel and Saïx bailed already, but they’re both poor excuses for scavengers. I’m also sure they glazed over quite a few interesting and useful things, maybe even some food.”

“Don’t get my hopes up.” Zexion attempted to muster a half smile, the muscles in his face fighting the action as if he had neglected their use for so long his face had simply forgotten how stretch the muscles appropriately. Touching the dips in his cheeks with the tips of his cold fingers, Zexion let his face fall much more comfortably into a frown. “Anyways, let’s get a move on. You’re right, because we are sitting ducks right now.”

“Alright, well, follow me. Bonnie and Clyde meets Dawn of the Dead.”

Zexion didn’t want to seem like an idiot, and so he kept his mouth shut even with the burning desire to ask what any of that meant. He suddenly felt the pristine white walls of his childhood close in on him, a cold panic seeping into his chest at the realization that may have been a common oddity in the normally functioning human domain. It was a cold reminder that his humanity had been stripped almost entirely, and that he’d lost out on nearly all formation of a social self. The desperate years of childhood where he should’ve been playing with other kids had been stolen from him as he was from his family, and locked away in a cage smaller than that he had called home for all those tormented years. The thought ate away at him, itched in the back of his mind, and left him feeling like a stray; riddled with mange and ferociously snarling at any who dared come close. He was raised and taught the acts and importance of rebellion, but had become something feral and unrecognizable.

“—and then…hey, are you listening to me?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Zexion blinked, the hollow deafness of his own thoughts subsiding as Riku’s voice cut through the murky stillness draping its wide arms around the world, embracing all on the earthly plane with an omnipresent anxiety.

“I _said_ that it’d probably be best for us to bunker down in the town overnight, since it’s a few mile walk there. And by a few I mean about nine, maybe ten at the most. We’ll be tired.” Riku said, turning away from Zexion to look ahead of himself; putting a hand up to shield his eyes as if the action would somehow allow him to see through the thick morning mist lingering a few feet above the wet ground.

“Yeah, okay.” Zexion said, ignoring Riku’s prior ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ statement as his thick soled boots made an audible sound with each step he took; heading in what could be presumed to be the direction of a used-to-be settlement. “Come on then. We’re burning daylight.”

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Riku asked, taking three long strides to catch up to Zexion’s lead. One hand idly held onto the strap of the backpack, while the other hung loose near the gun tucked into the makeshift holder of his waistband.

“No,” Zexion answered simply, keeping his eyes locked forward, always darting across his path for any unnatural movement. His ears perked at every sound; the birds rustling amongst the shivering leaves, the slurping absorption of the dense ground taking water in through hollow pores, the soft sigh of the wind twirling the fog into intricate patterns. “But I didn’t come this far knowing where I was going to go. I simply went, and accepted where I was—even if I didn’t know where that where was.”

“Do you always talk in prose?”

“Usually.”

Riku made a soft sound, maybe laughter or maybe disapproval, and a calm silence fell over the two of them. The world was beginning to wake in a slow yawn, drained of colour and life by the overnight downpour. When the rain stopped, the clouds still lingered in the dreary sky, creating an ashen blanket that swallowed any traces of the sun. The world was lit dimly, as if all colours had been toned down to a mute neutrality too afraid to bloom once more. The sounds of nature were aggressively gentle, too lulling and less wary that usual as the day broke from the shell of night. The eerie calmness shook Zexion slightly, raising the hackles on his cautious suspicion.

The sun was barely beginning to edge its way over the thick cloud cover, but it did little to impact the brightness. The world was a haze of not quite night, but not quite day; a disheartening limbo of almosts. Zexion felt himself frowning, chewing on his lip, and wondering just how early it was. The sleep he’d gotten was the same nightmarish quality as usual, undoubtedly the same duration as usual, but he felt so incredibly unrested. It was as if his body had accepted it had slept, but his mind was still trapped within a younger version of himself he’d dreamt about. He wondered if conscious thought could be trapped in a nightmare, and if there was any way to draw his focus back where its presence was required if he wanted to live long enough to have another nightmare piece together the fragmented splinters of memory he called a childhood. After the memory of a needle injecting a cold, burning fluid into his spinal cord, things were terrifyingly hazy.

Only within the last handful of years had his memory of a year in the Center started to come back, unfortunately in the form of nightmares the plagued his restless sleep. He could recall every small detail before and after the fact, but when he tried to sit down with his thoughts and piece together what exactly had been done to him, some of it was there and some of it came in the form of indiscernible pieces too cloudy to get any clear information from. It made him angry, serving only to pour oil on a raging fire already burning too hot. The heat fueled his purpose, but he still wondered how valiant his cause really was.

Sighing, disheartened, to himself, Zexion tugged anxiously on the bun resting against his head. He could feel the resistance of his follicles as he pulled, the stinging burn of the rubber band snared in his slate locks, and hoped maybe his tic would serve some usefulness to snap him out of his funk. The last thing he needed was to be out of focus with a stranger he’d met in a display of sheer gracelessness and distracted stupidity.

“You, uh, you don’t talk much, huh?” Riku asked, his teal eyes gazing curiously as Zexion’s thin, scarred fingers tugged against his hair, loosening the bun slightly until it drooped against his head like a weight held on by mere threads.

“Well, no, honestly. I haven’t been around another living thing with cognitive functioning and a heartbeat in eleven years.” He shrugged, dropping his hand, and shaking off a few long strands of hair he’d managed to dislodge from their roots in his scalp. “I’m not exactly what you’d consider the epitome of people person.”

“Fair enough. But, I’m curious, do you mind me trying to make conversation? I can’t stand silence. I’ve been trapped in it for too long after my running mates left. Just me, the zombies groaning, and the sounds of a railroad track crying as it rusts. It was maddening.”

 _As if you know what silence is,_ Zexion thought bitterly to himself, but reminded his companionate side that he could stand to learn how to associate with other people. “No, I don’t mind. But forgive me if I don’t always know what to say.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s cool.” Riku said, kicking at a stray stone lingering in his footpath. “So, how old are you?”

Zexion raised an eyebrow, but didn’t turn his gaze to meet Riku. “Why?”

“I’m just curious. I don’t know your actual name, and I figured I might be able to identify with you more if I knew your age was close to mine. You don’t look as old as you probably are, and I’m a bad judge of age.”

“Tell me yours then.”

“No way, man! I told you my name last night and all I got from you was ZC. If you don’t tell me your age, then you don’t get to know mine. You’ve got to give sometime.”

“Fine, for fuck’s sake. I’m almost twenty.”

“ _Almost_ twenty? You mean _nineteen_?”

“No, I mean almost fucking twenty. How old are you?”

Riku snorted, loudly, and the echoing sound shook a few birds from their nesting place in the trees. “Twenty three now. I can’t really tell what months are what anymore, and so birthdays have kind of passed onto a new era of guess and hope. I think I’m twenty three, but I could be twenty two still.”

“Hm.” Zexion said blandly, not out of disinterest, simply out of lack of things to say. He felt the sheer awkwardness of not having normal communication scratching at his vocal chords and tickling his throat, to which he hoarsely coughed in hopes the feeling would sort itself out.

“Can I ask you another question?”

“I suppose you’re going to no matter what I say anyways,” Zexion shrugged, fidgeting with the zipper on his bomber as they walked; their shoes now crunching on discarded leaves and twigs from the tall canopy of trees hanging ominously above them. “Go ahead, ask away. I can’t guarantee you’ll get an answer though.”

Riku pursed his pale lips in thought, chewing absentmindedly on the flaked skin where small cracks formed at the expense of dehydration; a common trend when clean drinking water was hard to come by. If the dead remains of what appeared to at one point have been a human wasn’t floating in it, it was running brown from shit or otherwise. Drinking was always a guessing game, like choosing the lesser of two evils. “About that scar on your face…what’s, well, I mean—” The other seemed to struggle over finding the right words, and Zexion wondered if straightforward questions were really the biggest problem they both had right now. “What happened with that?”

Zexion wanted to laugh at how painfully obvious the answer seemed, but he instead bought his calloused fingertips to run over the protruding ridges laced within his skin. The small cuts on his fingers altered the familiar texture just enough he could notice it, and Zexion sighed as he dug up a memory he’d buried long ago. “I was bitten.”

“Yeah, I know that. But how did it happen? I mean, you must’ve been scared, right? Thinking you were going to die and all?”

“Oh please.” He couldn’t hold it back anymore, and the laugh that passed over his lips was far more toneless than he’d imagined it would have been. “I’ve known I couldn’t die at a bite when I was a young child and never seemed to get sick. I wasn’t scared when it happened though. I was angry. I was pissed that some dead bastard would have the _nerve_ to sink his nasty fucking teeth into my skin. I was mad that the world had gone to hell, and that there I was, blood dripping down my neck after I’d gotten away, all by my fucking self. No, I wasn’t scared.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the two as Zexion’s words took on a sharp bite, and Riku cleared his throat three times before speaking again. “So, do you, well uh, crave…brains after you’re bitten? It’s clearly happened more than once and—”

“Cut the pansy shit, please. If you’re going to ask me something, ask it like you want an answer; not like you’re uncertain if you do.”

Riku sighed this time, rubbing at the back of his neck as a small tinge of colour filled in the empty paleness of his face; the redness putting a bit more emphasis on the bruise marring his cheek. “Alright, alright. I guess I want to know what happens after you’re bitten. You know, the side effects of being human.”

Zexion almost wanted to go on a rip-roaring tangent about being certain and direct with questions, but he held his tongue and presented a level of civility that was an important part of dealing with people. Maybe this was good thing, Riku being so cautious. It gave him practice for how to function like a normal human being who wasn’t locked in a dog crate and denied social gratification. “It’s like catching a really, really bad flu, only a hundred times worse. Infected have blood, but it’s just a thick black goo, and it fucking _reeks_. That goo is what holds the toxin that infects others and spreads the disease to other living people. What happens, is upon transmission, the goo enters the blood stream via teeth breaking skin and acts as an instant paralytic; like curare, for example. You can still sort of move, but everything hurts and lethargy is a massive problem. Then, as the goo floods your bloodstream and hits your heart, it starts to burn from the inside out. Imagine hydrochloric acid in your veins, and that’s about the best way I can describe it.”

Riku stumbled over a root in the footpath as his eyes locked onto the shorter male walking beside him, and he righted himself with a hearty grunt and another light flush to his face. He mumbled a curse under his breath before turning back to look at his new traveling companion. “And then what?”

“Then comes the nausea and vomiting. I’ve had a seizure once before because if the paralytic doesn’t always kick in, then the human body will convulse violently to fight the infection. I’ll run a fever, and sweat profusely. If my intestines actually have any matter in them, well, that’s a breeding ground for the infection and therefore it is forcibly launched out of my anus at a high, and painful velocity. Basically, I’m writhing in my own vomit, fecal matter, and sweat for a few days, and then it just sort of passes. Where normal people would turn and soon seek out a collective force of infected to show them the ropes, I stand up, and have a nice teeth shaped wound to nurse.”

“That’s…morbid.”

“Well, this is the world you live in now, Riku.” Zexion stated, letting his eyes dart away from his surroundings to make a brief eye contact with the other. “It’s a morbid, shit-infested, hellhole of a world. And until we stop the nasty bastards infesting it, there’s not a goddamn thing either of us can do.”

Zexion let his eyes wander back to the path, only for his ears to pick up a distant sound out of place and unfamiliar among the calls of birds and rustle of leaves.

“We can avoid getting bitten, I guess? I mean, as long as we shoot to kill and don’t—”

“ _Shh!_ ” Zexion hissed through clenched teeth as his stopped walking then, falling short a few feet behind Riku.

“What’s the—”

Zexion’s hand twitched as he neared it to the holster on his thigh, and he pointed in the direction just east of them; where the fog had accumulated densely and could not be seen through. “I think our conversation brought company.” He said hurriedly, his voice hushed to pick up any sounds that weren’t made by him, Riku, or the natural stillness that had suddenly draped over the land.

Both stood together, waiting silently, and listening carefully to every sound. The small snap of a twig under a heavy foot visibly shook Riku, and his hand made an immediate grab for the gun tucked into his pants. “What do we do?” He whispered back, as if he’d never actually had a reason to use that gun before in his life.

“Just wait.” Zexion urged, calm and stoically collected in his actions and speech. His thin shoulders were taut with anticipation, the look on his face a clear sign of, ‘ _give me a reason_ ’ as his fingers inched towards the pistol nestled against his leg. “It could be nothing.”

Another snap of a twig, and the rustling crunch of leaves being treaded on narrowed Zexion’s eyes and he held his breath for a long moment. Riku seemed unsure beside him, his fingers twitching nearer and nearer towards the trigger.

As he exhaled almost silently, Zexion’s next inhale brought the wafting pungency of rotten flesh and exposed viscera, sending his heart thudding in his chest. The scent was thick as smoke, and heavily tainted with a variety of potent stages of rot. Lumbering through the thick trees and underbrush, was an undead death headed straight for them. “Fuck.”

“What?” Riku’s voice seemed to crack as he darted his eyes violently across the fog shrouded path. “What is it?”

“Horde. Big one.” Zexion answered, putting a hand on Riku’s arm and pushing him in the direction he’d been walking. “We need to run.”

“Now?”

“Yes, fucking now! Go!” Zexion’s tone was intense, but his volume was low. The scent grew stronger, more nauseatingly fragrant, and his stomach turned. The idea of a sprint was disheartening, but he knew he couldn’t protect both himself and Riku right then. He was an excellent marksman, but marksmanship and miracles were two different planes entirely.

Riku seemed to stumble through a daze as Zexion pushed at him, but his brain eventually caught up and he forced his long legs into a sprint. His strides were double what Zexion could take, even at his top velocity, and keeping up with a panicked giraffe of a person was going to be a challenge if he ever saw one.

Keeping his gaze over his shoulder, Zexion forced his tired legs into a sprint, drawing his pistol from his holster. His brain clicked into survival mode, following a strict behavioral pattern that meant shoot to kill and feel no remorse. He could worry about his violent appearance later, because he was a survivalist. And if Riku wanted to survive, he would need to learn a few hard lessons in desensitizing.

As he ran, Zexion found himself struggling to keep on Riku’s heels and pay attention to the world around him. Riku seemed as if he didn’t know how to defend himself in a situation like this, and the last thing Zexion wanted to do was put a gun to the head of the first person he’d met in over a decade. It would be just his shit luck to lose this rogue individual less than twenty four hours after starting an, albeit uneasy, relationship with him.

Distracted by his own thoughts in an effort to keep up with Riku, Zexion barely had a moment to react when Riku cast a gaze over his shoulder, only to go doe eyed with panic.

“ZC! Look out!”

“Huh? Oh, fuck—!”

 In an instant, Zexion felt a thick force tackling him to the ground, his pistol leaving his grip, and the sounds of startled gunshots scaring birds from the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so fucking pumped for the next chapter.


	5. The Side Effects of Being Human

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to brainfuck all of you, so here's a free mind condom. Also, chapter 3 has art now, (thank you again, Anne!), and can be found on rainbowd00dle's art blog on tumblr, so go check that out if you want to see some really high quality art. Seriously, I'm in love. And as a side note, if you want to keep up with me talking about updates and various oddities of my life, my tumblr is ech0ux, and my twitter is @queerborn. You're welcome to those if you want to get to know me or just keep tabs on when I'm going to be posting updates and such.

Jagged stones rising from the below the thick carpet of leaves and twigs dug angrily into Zexion’s back, biting at his protruding ribs and spine as he struggled feebly against the heavy weight pushing him into the ground. “Get _off_! Get the fuck off of me, you cretin!”

The infected gnashed at the boy beneath him, his rotted teeth cracking like charcoaled firewood with each violent snap of his unhinged jaw. Black blood and mouth rot oozed over the corners of his rotted lips; two deadened worms clinging pitifully to the leathery skin of his sun-eaten face. Each hungry, lashing bite of his jaw dripped deathless goo onto Zexion’s face, staining his dirty skin with putrid matter foul enough to make his iron stomach revolt against the cavity of his body. Zexion’s legs writhed forcefully as he used his what little strength he had left to shove at the infected’s rotten shoulders; the brittle bones snapping in the socket like frail twigs as he pushed with all the force he could muster. He cringed, clenching his teeth, and unapologetically forced his arms up as far as his weak strength would allow him.

“Off! Get off! Fuck! Fuck, Riku, help me!” He screamed anxiously, feeling the dangerous quiver in his thin arms as the infected continued to lunge for his throat. Zexion could feel his strength weaning from the hunger he’d been battling the last few days, and in hindsight, he would’ve preferred to have just stayed put before and shot the relentless bastards to death. A clean headshot and this could’ve been avoided entirely.

“Riku! Please! Get the fuck over here and—” As he screamed to the other for help, Zexion’s thin arms gave under the dense weight of rotted meat, tanned flesh, and brittle bones, and the infected collapsed atop his prey. Ragged teeth collided with the supple flesh of Zexion’s exposed neck; at first just an accidental brushing as gravity yanked their bodies together like two lovers. Hot blood running fragrantly just below his skin lit up the survival instinct contained in the long dead neurons in the rotted brain of the infected, and before Zexion could even react, the familiar pain of broken enamel and wasted dentin sinking into layer after layer of his flesh sent shockwaves of pain through his body.

He shrieked, his own blood curdling at the unfamiliar sound, as the blackened rot dribbled into the fresh wound and down the side of his neck; mixing potently with his own hot blood. His body went limp beneath the pain and weight of the infected gnawing hungrily at his neck, drawing out his life essence and spilling his blood onto the wet ground. Poison began to creep into his bloodstream, with its thick tendrils grappling at his veins to pull itself in deeper and deeper; a parasitic infection intent on ravaging him as its next host.

Almost immediately, the paralytic effects began to sink grappling talons into his body, clogging his blood stream with a potent toxin he knew would leave many unnerving side effects in its wake. Little by little, his limbs began to seize under the unholy weight of the infected; shallow groans morphing quickly into labored breaths that ballooned an ache in his muscles.  

“Heh…” Zexion choked out between the fluids rising up in the back of his throat, garbling his words sickeningly. “Nice try…asshole…but I’m not….hngh, ow, so easily won.”

Rotten teeth languidly chewed on his flesh like a teething child, suckling his blood like an infant would; desperate for nourishment. Zexion’s body attempted a revolt against the infection his system was no stranger to, but the effects upon transmission were already deeply rooted within him. He could feel his skin breaking into a light sweat as a soft ringing began in his ears, a prelude to the rebellion that would soon scream from within him. Below the prison of his ribcage, his heart began to work twice has hard in his chest, attempting to flush the poison out of his tainted bloodstream. Zexion’s mouth became ripe with the acrid taste of bile rising slowly up his throat, and the paralysis in his muscles began to spread a wildfire licking over every inch of his defiled body, causing a choked scream to erupt from behind the suffocating fluids blocking his throat. Stringy bile oozed over the corners of his mouth, stinging miniscule cuts scattered along his lips.

While Zexion lay helplessly screaming, his panicked brain barely had time to register the sound of a skull shattering, and the blood spatter that rained rotted brain matter and blood across his face. The teeth in his neck all but disintegrated as the skull in which they were anchored became little more than unrecognizably sundered fragments. The limp, lifeless corpse of the infected slumped to the side; its wide chest pressing against Zexion’s and cutting off his limited air supply.

Heavy footsteps kicked up the dirt, shaking the ground he was held steadfast to, and the weight on his chest disappeared as the corpse was shoved off of Zexion like yesterday’s garbage. “ZC! Holy shit, are you alright? You’re covered in blood…” Riku’s voice was a welcome reminder to pull Zexion back into reality, and he groaned at the hypothetical slap to the face. The taller male knelt down, taking one of Zexion’s petit hands in his own as the opposite supported his back, pulling him upright to sit. “Oh my god, ZC, your neck is covered in blood…”

Riku lifted a hand in an attempt to touch the wound, but Zexion weakly batted his hand away, only to find the appendage drop like a stone weight as his body seized over and over with each heartbeat flooding his system with damaged blood. “Don’t…” He said softly, bile and saliva oozing out of his mouth and dripping from his paled lips, falling to stain his shirtfront and the rotten ground beneath him. The world above and below him was spinning at a high velocity in separate directions, and he clenched his eyes; body swaying as he fell against Riku’s firm hand supporting his back.

“Woah, woah. Easy there, tiger. Just take it easy.”

Even with black goo staining his face and infecting his nose with the foul smell of death and decay, the unmistakable pungency of a horde wave approaching bathed the cool air in dangerous warning Zexion couldn’t ignore. “We need…to move…” He muttered, his head lolling as the sickness invaded his body, attempting a seizure of his cells already held hostage. His pulse throbbed in his ears, drowning out the sounds of the world around him like an angry drummer keeping tempo. “Horde coming…help me up…”

“Let me carry you, ZC. You’re in no shape to—”

“M’fine. I won’t…slow you down…Just help me…please.” Zexion forced is eyes to open, the oceanic cerulean faded to a muted stormy grey. His pupils dilated wildly, almost as if they were attempting to keep pace with the angry tempo of his heartbeat. He could feel the thick goo from the infected’s mouth backing up his blood stream, dropping his vitality to a state of disrepair. The looming threat of unconsciousness hung over his shoulder, running its cold fingers down his neck and freezing his spine. Zexion knew they needed to move now, or Riku would suffer the same fate; only he wouldn’t fight it off like a bad flu.

“Hurry…get me…up.” Zexion commanded weakly, attempting to will the paralytic effect of the infection out of his body. He forced his eyelids back once more as they fluttered, making sure he was awake at any cost. He couldn’t afford to become unconscious now, he needed to be the one to take the gnashing teeth and lunging attacks. He wouldn’t hold himself accountable for another death he should’ve taken the bite for…not again.

Looking to Riku, Zexion’s eyes pleaded with him, begging him to stand them up and get moving. Riku wrapped an arm around the other’s small waist, draping the younger’s arm around his shoulders, and pulling up as he stood. Riku’s height made it so he needed to hunch slightly to avoid pulling Zexion up by his shoulder joint, and he firmly held the smaller up by the waist band of his cargos.

“Can you walk?” Riku asked hurriedly, tossing a worried look first to Zexion, followed by casting the same worried gaze behind himself as the wind rushed in with the massive scent of the horde he had been warned about. Past a line of thick trees, the balding head of an infected appeared like a moon rising up to cast gloomy shadows over all he presided over, and Riku tugged at Zexion’s lagging body to get him moving. “ZC, can you walk?”

Zexion was limply standing on his own two legs, most of his bodyweight supported by Riku’s hold. He felt the strong grip of nausea wringing his stomach out, but he swallowed thickly around it with determination not to be a burden. He’d made it through this before, and he could damn well do it again. “Yes, we need to…move.”

“Then let’s fucking move!” Riku said, looking back to Zexion as he began walking at a slow pace, taking gradual steps one by one to get the other’s body used to the idea of walking. With the horde lumbering behind them, they would definitely need to run. And soon.

“Go…go!” Zexion spat out, drool pouring off of his swollen lower lip as his organs rammed themselves against the infected cage of his body; a desperate attempt at escape from the choking poison. All of the colour in his body drained out as he tried to reconnect his brain to his legs, as if his mobility had been siphoned out by the infected’s bite currently oozing black goo and crimson blood like a macabre waterfall down the side of his neck. The nausea in his stomach was making sure its presence was known, and Zexion wasn’t faring well against being vertical. He wanted nothing more than to just hinge at the hips, and let gravity take control of his stomach contents.

But with Riku impatiently pulling on his waistband to get him moving, he forced his limp legs to take a weak few steps. His bodyweight shifted from resting against Riku to back into his own control once more, and Zexion groaned in sheer agony. The pain flaring up in his muscles had spread to his tendons and joints, setting his entire skeletal system ablaze with infection. “Oh my god…” He wheezed, clinging to Riku desperately. The poison in his system must’ve been circulating through that infected’s body for quite some time, seeing as the pure potency to that little bit filtered into his body was making him this sick, this quickly. He could barely move, and fighting to stay upright was less of a challenge than fighting to stay conscious.

“Riku…” He gasped, his legs giving way beneath the small weight balanced on them. Riku’s hold on his body lessened, and Zexion fell to his knees; hitting the dirt with an audibly pitiful sound. His body was significantly weakened, and Zexion found himself rolling to the side in fetal position. Every fiber of his being seemed to be set ablaze, and that pain searing through every last conceivable inch of his body was almost unbearable. The wound on his neck was aflame beneath the black blood crusting around it, and the poison inside of his body made his fingers grab for his hair, pulling his head in towards his chest as a loud scream erupted from his lips. The pain was one he had never felt in his life, not even during the procedures in the Center.

“ZC!” Zexion felt Riku’s hand against his abdomen, rolling him onto his back after kneeling down to his level. A cool hand rested against his clammy forehead, and Riku gasped. “You’re burning up. We need to get you out of here. Come on, up we go.” Zexion felt a hand beneath his knees, and another beneath his shoulders, hoisting his body off of the ground. “Okay, we’re going to be okay. Come on, ZC, stay with me now. You’re alright.” Riku’s panicked voice was the furthest thing from reassuring, and Zexion wailed again, writhing in Riku’s hold as his heart pumped fiercely below his skin.

Zexion could feel his small frame being bounced around as Riku broke into a sprint, carrying his weight like it was barely there. Beneath the smothering weight of the pain, his eyelids fluttered heavily as his body fought the infection. His stomach cringed and churned, eyes rolling, and a cold sweat broke out over his colourless skin. Every inch of his body was ensnared with the lashing tongue of one thousand degree heat; burning its way through each lightless tunnel, every follicle, every crack and crevice it could worm the paralytic agony into.

Riku tried, vainly, to talk the limp body cradled awkwardly in his lanky arms back into a settled consciousness. The seizing and writhing of limbs, the wailing spilling over his lips, it jarred Riku like nothing else had. He had bore witness to some enormously gruesome things in his lifetime, but the sight of another human after being bitten was by far the most brutal. The uncontained agony that twisted every sharp curve of Zexion’s features into an animalistic torment burned a hole in Riku’s chest and mangled the pit of his stomach; enough that he could ignore the burning exertion in his lanky legs and press on.

Above the gasping sounds of his labored inhales, the grating wail of the horde echoed menacingly behind him. Zexion’s body had suddenly and all at once gone slack in his arms, the whites of his eyes visible as his limbs hung like deflated balloons, his being lacking all vitality. The pale, marred skin had begun to exhibit a sickly grey tone, his lips taking on a soft blue tinge as pale yellow fluid oozed over his mouth in a swift flow. The sickening sounds of choked gurgling erupted from the back of his throat, beneath the layers of putrid bile choking him.

“Please don’t die…don’t you fucking die on me!” To Zexion, the sound of Riku’s voice was an anchor in the swallowing sea of darkness, keeping a pinprick of light in his near unconsciousness. He couldn’t comprehend the words the silver haired male spoke, but the sound was there, and just enough to give him a focus; something he could hone the last bit of vitality on before the infection sucked him under.

Zexion’s body had gone deliciously numb, the burning in his limbs becoming little more than a gentle smolder. It was heat that reminded him of the heart pumping so loudly in his chest he could barely comprehend the rest of the sounds tempting his hearing, could barely focus on the rest of his body. All he understood was the rapid contraction of the muscle threatening to turn his ribcage to dust, and the mild sting on what he presumed to be his neck. Blissfully unaware of how sick he was, Zexion could only wonder almost unconsciously why is lungs weren’t feeling as full, why his chest felt heavy, and why the cotton haze in his brain was worsening with each second.

He fought, desperately, to cling to the undiscernible sounds falling from Riku’s lips, but the thick haze of cotton spread from his brain to his ear canals, worming its way down each tunnel until it formed an unbreakable barricade between him, and the outside world. Zexion wasn’t sure if he was really seeing anything, just a misty white clouding the edges of his vision and thickening as he attempted a focus on any one thing. The cotton edged its way down his optic nerve, abrasive and domineering, until his cornea was replaced with a mass of something opaque. Something hot and fluid brought a brief awareness to what he assumed to be his mouth, chest heaving wildly, until it all went dark.

He lingered, for a moment or a century it was hard to tell, in that warm darkness until his brain and heart sunk up with pulsating rhythm; the sounds growing louder and louder, faster and angrier, hollow but dense. It built up with an enormous pressure, threatening detonation with each hard slam of the organs against his body, his senses crying with overexertion. Just when the pressure became too much, the sound too overwhelming, something audibly cracked, and a pressing warmth melded intoxicatingly with the darkness until there was nothing left.  

 

_Concrete. Blood soaked, visible patches of rusty brown in large amounts pooling over the ashen surface, the potent scent of freshly split crimson, wet and metallic, mixing nauseatingly with the rancid musk of old, dried blood. The abrasive bite of the jagged concrete dug its unforgiving teeth into the pale flesh of a boy with a hue of unnatural colours exploding in a supernova of malicious purples and reds around his right eye. Broken blood vessels created a solar system on his face; red constellations connecting in a pattern of malice and injury. Pooling red was highlighted by deep rings of purple around both eyes, giving an eight year old the appearance similar to that of an overworked forty year old. The bridge of his nose swelled overnight form where the bottom of a boot had contacted with his face, tinging with identical hues to that marring his eye. Blood crusted around both nostrils, leaking a crackled trail to his upper lip, and staining his sun starved skin angrily._

_The restlessness of sleep gave him a much overdo respite, freeing him if only momentarily from the vice grips of an undesirable life. Sleep was an uncomfortable limbo of half-consciousness pouring nightmares into his reality, and sucking him into what was supposed to be a restorative state that left him more tired than before. The bed he’d had for the past few nights was this musky concrete flood, cold and unforgiving, that reeked so potently of blood, the bitter stench of urine and bile was all but undetectable._

_He knew it was stupid to have attempted survival, to have fought against the tests. He knew it could very well have cost him his life, yet, he ended up taking another’s. The scalpel in his mentor’s neck had hit something important, and they couldn’t save him. While Zexion had been lying unconscious on the floor, Ansem, the single person in this facility with enough humanity left in him to treat the captives at least halfway decently, had bled out on the white tile. Word going around was that the stain would remain there for a long time. As for Zexion, his infamy among the other scientists spread faster than the infection had, and ended him in a form of solitary confinement._

_The Dangerous Ward, as it was supposedly called, was constructed almost like a pound but with a viewing area. Thick slabs of concrete made up the floor, and walls made of a thick, unbreakable Plexiglas stood proudly on all four sides. It was a glass and concrete box with sliding chambers and windows where food and injections were given through. There were only four in total, and all were connected by two slabs of transparent glass. Zexion could see down the other three cells, having only a neighbor to his left, and for what it was worth, he was actually kind of glad other kids in this hell of a life weren’t being subjected to this cruel treatment._

_Ultimately, this was a form of punishment. Zexion was fed only once every two days, a small meal around noon consisting of half a cup of cold oatmeal, and a medicine cup of lukewarm and questionably sanitary water. He’d be given routine injections of some kind of calming agent, a sedative too strong for his malnourished body to handle. After the needle pumped him full, he’d drunkenly toddle around the cell, banging weakly on the glass, and crying for help. He’d try to scream, only to find his legs unable to hold his weight. Like a rock dropped into a lake, he’d sink down the glass, collapsing into a heap of weakened limbs and disorientation._

_Sometimes breathing would be a hard labor, and sometimes his chest would feel too tight. He’d often forget things, simple things, like his name or his age. It would come back to him eventually after a reminder or two, but the notion always frightened him. Zexion, like all others in the Center, was afraid to forget. Even if he was only a number here, his memories told him that, no, he was the heir to a rebellious spark that needed to be rekindled. He was Zexion Campanelli, eight years old, son to—well, somebody. Truth be told, after about seven injections, he’d begun, slowly but surely, to forget little things about his parents. It started with his mother’s hair colour, then how his father kept his facial hair, what his mother always wore around her neck, and his father’s eyes. It progressed with each injection until Zexion was forgetting two or three things about both of his parents at a time. At night, after the serum had worn off and he was left sweating and shaking with the side effects, he’d force his exhausted brain to unearth every single memory of his parents, no matter how menial the detail seemed._

_After each injection, each span of time where he lay unconscious and placid against the concrete, he’d wake up with less of his parent’s memory intact. It stung him, nudged at the flame growing in the back of his mind, but he was too drugged up to do a damn thing about it. Each needle in his skin pushed a sedative in, and drew out what little fight he had left in him._

_At night, after the scientists would finish their sweep of the building to ensure everything was locked down, Zexion would lay awake sobbing silently. Tears would run down his cheeks stained with red blotches, the red rimmed puffiness around his eyes making it hard to see past the haze of defeat. He was in this state of inability, his humanity, dignity, and memories being stripped from his body in layers. His parents never would have stood for this, and he knew deep within himself that he had somehow disappointed them. He was born to bring the world back, to purge the godforsaken evil running this shithole of a country, but he was too beaten down to even help himself. Escape from the Center had seemed so possible before, but now, Zexion was sure he’d die here. Nameless, faceless, useless._

_Two weeks passed this way, with Zexion being starved and drugged against his will, spending hours at a time unconscious or laying on the floor in a fetal position attempting to remember every detail he could still scrounge from his memories shrouded in a haze of forgetfulness. His brain felt empty, invaded, and perverted by the injection of some memory depleting sedative. An eight year old, with the most limited vitality any of the scientists at the Center had ever seen from him, was currently having his memories taken from him. Whatever that serum was, the moment his body absorbed it, it began to hungrily ravage his unconscious brain, stealing not only his memories, but his very identity._

_By the third week, Zexion had figured it all out, had put the pieces together with the missing patches of memory. They hadn’t just put him in here to punish him. They’re put him in here, drugged him up, and were ripping out the roots of his unruly behavior. They were conditioning him, training him to be a pliable toy they could experiment on and torment as they pleased. If they stripped away the useless rebellious attitude, they could make him their total puppet._

_Zexion wanted to scream as he realized this, wanted to punch through the glass, and relentlessly drive a scalpel into the brainstem of every scientist in this damn place. He wanted to become an unstoppable force of nature, wreaking havoc in a path of unholy destruction. He wanted to start fires, shatter beakers of fluid, strap down those who had done the same to him and give them memory depleting injections against their will. Even as they stripped him of his memory, they were only making progress at a counterproductive rate. Instead of making him pliable like they believed they were doing, they only served to start a new, searing fire within him. Zexion’s blood boiled much closer to the surface at one thousand degrees of anger, and he vowed to himself to be the bringer of Hell and high water._

_But, even with his temper flaring hotter now than he could ever remember, Zexion knew he was in no physical condition to bring about anything except more punishment upon himself if he even so much as attempted a thought. He would need help, and soon, before every last minute detail of his memory was wiped clean from his mind. Being stripped of his dignity was one thing, but taking his identity was something unforgivable._

_Three days after his realization, some higher power decided to spare what little sanity and memory he had left, and the cell beside him was soon occupied by a boy not much younger than Zexion, himself, was. His hair was a sandy blond, and his eyes the colour of the ocean that lapped at the shore, and he spent his energy doing the same thing Zexion had done initially; banging on the glass and screaming bloody murder. At first, the older of the two simply lay in his lethargic state, watching with cloudy cerulean eyes as the other screamed when the needle pierced his skin, and how drunkenly he stumbled around the small cell after the fact. Zexion felt enormous pity for the poor kid when his frail looking body collapsed in a panicked heap on the concrete, and he wanted to reach out to him, but sociability wasn’t his strong suit. The kid babbled nonsense to himself often, his voice barely above a whisper, but a slight lisp was apparent in the seemingly endless stream of words tumbling out of his mouth._

_Both boys were given their injections and meals at the same time, and Zexion watched over the course of the other’s first week how he tumbled down the slippery slope of helplessness. The pitiful lethargy plagued the blond in the same way it had done to Zexion, and he feared if he didn’t speak up soon, his window may close._

_Fate, however, seemed to be favoring Zexion more and more as he was drugged again and again; clinging desperately to the smallest reminders of his parents, the last bit of memory he had left. He was skeptical as to how long the treatments would continue, how much more they’d steal from him before they’d reacquaint him to the lab rat lifestyle he was so unfortunately a part of. Zexion feared for his life, but he feared more for total loss of his memory. If they could take away this much already, who’s to say they couldn’t take everything else he had come to know about himself, and replace it with false memories or no memory at all?_

_The thought was something that troubled Zexion after he’d come out of his comatose state, and he’d lay awake in fetal position, wondering and worrying. He had yet to open his mouth and talk to the other boy, and was finding it harder to keep the rebellious flame alive as each day passed with less memory, and less hope._

_Zexion lay, curled up on himself, face pressed against the concrete, thinking with his eyes close in exhausted anguish. His thoughts were still angry, but the hopeless edge was starting to push its way in, dimming the fire within him to little more a hot smolder. He was so tired, so emotionally exhausted, it felt like he’d lived two lifetimes. Every thought of redemption seemed bleak, hazy, and hopelessly futile._

_That was, until one night, with his back turned to the glass separating the younger boy and himself, came three gentle raps on the dividing line. The vibrations traveled through the Plexiglas, startling Zexion from his sleepless rest. Wearily, he picked up his head, throwing a hazy look over his shoulder._

_What he saw behind that glass surprised him. The little blond, perched on his knees, hands pressed against the glass, was looking at Zexion with blue eyes so pristine and pure, it was almost painful to see him trapped like an animal. The moment his cerulean eyes met with the oceanic blue, the blond tried to smile, but could only muster a small quirk to the corner of his pale lips._

_“Hi, Zexion.” He said, his lisp cutely turning Zexion’s name into ‘Zeshion’._

_Zexion, startled this kid knew his name, sat up tiredly, and perched his weight on his tailbone to face the glass. “How...do you know my name?”_

_“Everybody knows your name here. You’re famous. But, in a bad way.”_

_The soft, ‘tch’ passing over Zexion’s lips sounded weak, and he made at face at the sheer grogginess he simply couldn’t shake from himself. “What’s your name, kid?”_

_“Demyx Donovan. My parents used to call me Double D.”_

_Zexion found a deep fondness in himself for the way this kid talked about his family, even if it was only briefly. As much as he refused to admit it to himself, he had a soft spot for family; even if he no longer had the ability to remember his own. “Alright, well hi, Demyx.”_

_Demyx paused, staring at Zexion, and opening his mouth as if to say something, only to close it once more and chew on his lower lip. He removed his hands from the glass, bringing them to clasp in front of his chest, and wringing them together. Anxiousness._

_“Demyx, what’s wrong?” Zexion asked, drawing his knees into his chest, and resting his cheek atop them so he could continue to look at the other with having to support the weight of his head._

_“Did you really kill somebody here?” He asked, voice small and afraid as if he feared asking the question would set him up for the same fate._

_To be quite frank with himself, Zexion hadn’t really thought about it much, but he had killed somebody. He’d killed the only decent person with some remainder of humanity left in them, and had now left the Center in the hands of complete and total heartless bastards. Frowning deeply, but still holding a gentle gaze with Demyx, Zexion nodded slowly. “Yes, Demyx. I did. But I did it out of self-defense. They’ve done terrible things to me here.”_

_“I’m sorry, Zexion.” Demyx’s face fell, and his eyes lowered to stare at the ground. “Policemen took my parents and my sister away from me because somebody lied about my family. And that’s how I came here.” The minute sniffle from Demyx was an arrow straight to the heart, and while he wasn’t much for personal contact, Zexion felt inclined to somehow reach through the glass dividing them and hug Demyx with all his might._

_“Sometimes you can’t protect people, Demyx.” Zexion said, his eyes softening as two tiny hands rubbed angrily at a pair of oceanic eyes taking on a storm. “And you can’t blame yourself for that.”_

_“I don’t.” Demyx stated in a flat tone, lifting his head to meet Zexion’s eyes once again. A slight red colour was forming around his eyes, sandy blond brows drawing down to an acute point. “The policemen killed them, not me. I want them back, but I know can’t have that. I just, I want…” Demyx chewed his lip in thought, wringing his hands once more. “I want you to kill somebody for me.”_

_“What?” Such a dark request from such a small, innocent looking child was enough to throw even the most versed adult, and Zexion wished he wasn’t so lethargic so he could properly respond to the request. “Demyx, do you know what you’re asking for?”_

_“Yes. And that’s why I needed to talk to you at least once, before I help you get out of here.”_

_“Demyx, what’re you—”_

_The blond shook his head, putting a finger to his lips to instruct Zexion to hush. He stood up, wavering but catching himself, and patted at the pockets of his hospital grade scrubs. He was one of the specials who got more than the standard open back gown to wear, and Zexion raised an eyebrow in curiosity as to what this boy was up to._

_“I was a pet to one of the scientists. Xigbar, his name was. You know the one with the black and white ponytail and the eyepatch?” Zexion nodded, briefly remembering the boot to his face. Thinking back on Xigbar’s appearance, he wasn’t surprised one of the kids here was kept as his little plaything. The lewd, ‘if only you weren’t such a firecracker’ comments now made sense, and Zexion shuddered with disgust. “I’m not a Carrier. I’m actually immune deficient, so me being in this place is a huge risk to my health. Xigbar was there when the police killed my family, and he took me in out of what I thought was kindness. I was wrong.”_

_Demyx pulled a small syringe from his pocket, the barrel full of an opaque white liquid. He smiled at the needle before looking back to Zexion and continuing. “Xigbar only wanted a plaything, and so he slaughtered my family in cold blood to have me. He told the police force my family was sneaking out at night and had gotten infected. Shoot on sight took them from me. I’ve been locked up in this place since I was five because of Xigbar.”_

_“How old are you?”_

_“I’m nine.”_

_“Nine? But you look so young! All this time I thought you were younger than me!”_

_“I know, and I expected that. But that’s why Xigbar wanted me, because I would stay juvenile longer than you would. But I didn’t get your attention to tell you why I’m here. I need you to destroy this lab, Zexion.”_

_“How? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m useless. I’m weak, pathetically so.”_

_“I thought about that, dummy. That’s why I have this,” Demyx gave a short shake to the needle, making the liquid slosh languidly. He sunk back down to the floor, putting a hand on the glass with his wide, innocent eyes boring a pleading hole into everything Zexion was. “I stole it from Xigbar when he wasn’t paying attention. I’ve been holding onto it, waiting for the right moment. And this is it. This needle has a solution called Nihilsanabit. It’s Latin meaning, in a nutshell, is heal everything. The scientists accidentally made this, and since they aren’t looking to heal things, they left it laying around. Every scientist carries a shot on them, just because. I don’t know what’s in it, but I do know it’s fast acting and lasts for a few days. I haven’t heard anything about side effects, but as far as I know, it’s safe.”_

_“Demyx, why are you telling me this?”_

_“Because,” The blond began, his eyes narrowing as they became distant, unfocused. “You are the only one who can take care of this problem. This lab needs to be destroyed. They aren’t keeping all of you Carriers in here to find a cure. They’re keeping you in here and torturing you. The government doesn’t want any imperfections on their plans. When they released the virus on the world, it wasn’t by accident because they’d been hiding it from the public.”_

_“But, I thought—”_

_“You thought wrong, Zexion. They did this on purpose. It was a test to see how much power a single branch could hold at once. Do you know why they killed off so many people, and keep the rest hoarded up like cattle? This is genocide. The government wants to create a new United States, one where their power is unrestricted. The rest of the world won’t touch us because of what has been unleashed on so many innocent people. And because we have this virus thing, the U.S. government, if that’s what is still in power, can pull puppet strings in any nation they want by threatening to send the virus in a hand sealed envelope. This whole thing is politics, Zexion. It’s politics and corruption, and it killed my family and probably yours too. Nobody in this place isn’t an orphan.”_

_“But how can I trust you, Demyx? I can’t remember my life anymore. They took my memories from me. I used to know…at least I think I knew something? Something important they didn’t want me to know…” Zexion wracked his brain, but everything he tried to pull forward was missing. Empty, so empty._

_“Zexion, I was under special protection from the government. I had a paper that protected me from any harm, and if somebody without the proper clearance violated that, if they so much as_ breathed _on me, they would be dead so fast nobody would even know what happened. I attacked Xigbar, and got myself put in here to talk to you.”_

_Everything around Zexion spun. How was he supposed to digest all this? Everything he thought he knew was suddenly invalidated, and he didn’t know what to believe in. His parent’s memories held some important piece to this puzzle, but he couldn’t rely on that anymore. All he could do now was to take what Demyx said in stride, and to trust him._

_“Please, I know this is a lot all at once but you’re running out of time, Zexion. They’re not just taking your memories away from you, they’re turning your brain off very slowly. I’ve watched this happen before. In another two weeks, if you’re lucky, you’ll be dead.”_

_“Demyx, I…” Zexion paused, putting his hands to his head and holding his temples. His brain throbbed from within his skull, and for some strange reason, he felt okay about putting his faith in everything Demyx said. It was as if his brain understood, even if he couldn’t yet. He dropped his hands, letting his gaze meet the burning ocean of the, recently discovered, older’s eyes. “Okay. I trust you.”_

_The relief that washed over Demyx’s face was something only seen in movies, or written about in novels. “Good. Here,” The blond reached into his pocket, pulling out what looked like floss bound into a small ball. He unwound knots and kinks, and tied the syringe to the end. “See that little sliding door at the front of the cage thing? If you kick that hard enough, it’ll pop off the track and you can remove it because it's just regular glass unlike the rest of this cage thing. I’ll kick mine off and swing this into your cube. After you get it, I’ll tell you how to use it.”_

_Zexion nodded, though suddenly felt wary. What if he wasn’t strong enough to kick the sliding door off? What would happen then? He felt the fire that’d been dulled to a weak smolder rising up inside of him once more, and a new undying sense of responsibility to Demyx._

_Attempting to push the negative thoughts off, Zexion weakly crawled on his hands and knees to the sliding door; saving the energy it would’ve taken to stand up and walk. He reached the end with a grunt, feeling slightly out of breath, if not overexerted. “Won’t this make a lot of noise and attract attention?”_

_“Nope,” Demyx said, positioning himself so he was laying against the concrete, feet positioned against the glass door. “This room is basically soundproof and the guards think we’re both too lethargic to even breathe at this point. We’ll be fine.”_

_“Okay.” Zexion worked on positioning himself identically to Demyx, bracing his hands against the ground. He looked to the blond, giving him a nod, and bringing his legs into his chest. Clenching his eyes against the slight pain that rose up in his unused joints, Zexion focused what little strength he had left, and forced both legs down against the sliding door as hard as he could. Even with how weak he felt the kick was, the glass gave with a crack, and appeared loose._

_“That’s it, Zexion! Come on, one more good kick like that and you’ll have it off.” Demyx’s heels connected solidly with the glass in his cell, and it cracked in two, popping off of the track. The blond pulled himself to his knees, pushing the two shards out onto the floor. “Come on, you can do it.” He encouraged, scooting as close to the opening as possible._

_Zexion, after that singular kick, felt impossibly tired. The last of his strength had all been focused into that one motion, and it still wasn’t enough. His body felt like it really was shutting down, and an angry panic flooded his veins. “Just…one more…” He said, breathlessly, drawing his knees into his chest, and holding for a moment to try and work up the strength he needed. Zexion, biting his lips to stave off the intense burning ravaging his body, forced his legs out in a swift motion, only to feel the glass cave under his feet. The crack he’d created before split right in two, and fell out of the track all on its own._

_“Great job! Now, I’m going to throw this through the—oh…oh no.”_

_Zexion had rolled to his side as his body broke into a rapid sweat, breathing hard with clenched eyes. He jerked violently, emitting a choked cough, and Demyx watched in horror as blood poured out of Zexion’s mouth. His stomach heaved aggressively, pushing the crimson past his pale lips in stringy ropes that clung to his face and the concrete._

_“Zexion? Zexion, are you okay? Oh my god, please be okay…”_

_Too weak to find the words, Zexion lay on the cool concrete and attempted to stop his world from spinning. His stomach gave up trying to force itself up his esophagus, but the weakness in his body gave him violent shakes as sweat beaded up on his skin. He managed to open his eyes, looking down at Demyx waiting by the newly opened window. “I need…” he began, wiping his mouth and smearing blood along the back of his mouth, and taking a deep, steadying breath. “…to…destroy.”_

_Demyx’s face lit up with pride, and he gave Zexion an encouraging thumbs up. “No wonder you’re such a threat to everybody in here.”_

_Had he had the strength, Zexion might’ve laughed. But instead, he braced his hands against the floor, pushing himself to sit up. He was dizzy, frighteningly so, but the shot Demyx had would fix this. It would fix him. He knew that this pain, this agony, was only temporary, and relief was right there beyond a layer of glass._

_Ignoring the metallic bile taste on his tongue, and the anguish in his body, Zexion scooted down the concrete just a little ways until he was in front of the window. He leaned forward, resting his clammy forehead against the glass above the kicked out window. “Throw…throw it…”_

_Demyx nodded, a concentrated look settling onto his features. He stuck his arm out of the window, letting his body slip to the floor so he was laying on his side. His shoulder was pressed against the glass, neck jarred at an impossible angle, and he sighed. “Okay, here it comes.” Clenching his eyes now, the blond lowered the rope until the syringe nearly hit the floor, and swung it back and forth a few times to build up some momentum. As the needle began to swing faster, Demyx grunted, breathing harder. “Stick your hands out of the window and get ready to catch it.”_

_Nodding weakly, Zexion slid himself back, laying on his stomach. He stuck his arms out of the window as far as he could, while still keeping his eyes on Demyx’s movements. The syringe nearly touched his hands just by Demyx swinging it alone, and it was promising._

_“Alright, here it comes!” Demyx swung the floss thread back, and as it rocked forward, he put an extra amount of force behind the swing; letting go of the floss. The syringe easily covered the distance between them, and Zexion’s fingers weakly held around the needle as it landed almost directly in his hands._

_“Good! It worked! Quick, bring it in and I’ll tell you how to use it.”_

_“I know how…to use a needle…” Zexion murmured, pulling his tired arms into his cell, and staring at the syringle. It was the average injection, and he had done this many, many times before. “Is it…”_

_“IM. You’ll need to aspirate the needle.”_

_“Right.” Zexion groaned, forcing his exhausted body to sit up and lean against the glass. He pulled the hospital gown up, exposing his right thigh. Without hesitation, Zexion pulled the cap off of the tip of the syringe, tossing it aside. He grabbed for a bit of muscle on his thin leg, and lowered the needle into his skin. A hissing breath escaped him as he pushed the needle down until only a small bit of it was exposed, and using his thumb, weakly pulled the plunger up to make sure there was no blood. When the fluid stayed clean, he pushed the plunger down, watching as the opaque liquid emptied into his skin._

_Demyx sat on the opposite side of the glass, watching intently as Zexion finished up with the injection. He pulled the needle from his leg, tossing it aside, and letting his head rest fully against the glass; closing his eyes. “What now.”_

_“It takes ten to fifteen minutes to kick in,” Demyx said. “in the meantime, I’ll tell you everything I know about this lab, and how it should be destroyed.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it was last chapter I said how pumped I was for this one. There's probably a really large amount of grammatical errors here but eh. I'm really tired from working on this single chapter literally all day and will fix said errors at a later time. Anyways, this chapter is one of those turning point revelations, and I'm excited about it. I know exactly where I want to take this story, and ya'll better have a flashlight because it's about to get dark.


	6. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations, emotions, and an unexpected history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a long time to finish this, but I'm glad I finally did. It's the first of many doors opening to the richness of the story I have in mind.

For an interminable amount of time, the consuming feeling of warmth amongst an unnavigable darkness held tightly to Zexion like a mother coddling her child. He floated, weightless, in a thick sea of unconsciousness, fumbling through the darkness with numb limbs to find something tangible to bring himself back. His state of minimally conscious awareness was brought to light only after a series of hyper realistic nightmares where he relived the initial shock of the bite time and again, somehow feeling the ghost remnants of the unmistakable burning sensation engulfing some indefinite portion of his body. Zexion wanted to scream against the pain, but he couldn’t find a usable connection to his mouth, his lungs, or any functioning part of his body. His body seemed to be disconnected at all points, and hollowed as his internal organs leaked from a painless slit, spilling his blood and guts into the numbing darkness. He was vacant, surprisingly painlessly so, but the sensation was frightening. Even while his brain was functioning at the lowest possible level of cognition, Zexion still held onto his rebellious nature with the desire to come out of the darkness.

Being so pitifully numb made it a near impossibility to grab hold of something and pull himself from below the surface of the consuming warmth. Every moment he could consciously focus on bringing himself back was spent doing just that, until he’d wear himself out and be subjected once more to the painful nightmares that drowned him in silence. He would’ve felt so much better if he could just scream, but the possibility of ever returning to a fully conscious state seemed less and less with each failed attempt to reawaken himself. Zexion wanted to believe he was just sleeping, but the deeply restorative comatose state he was rooted so deeply in shattered that hope.

Time no longer passed, it simply was. Zexion had no idea how long he’d been treading water in the darkness, but the same mundane routine of failing at retrieving consciousness and then silently suffering through the painful burning had taken on an uncomfortable normality. He was more than ready for a change, but the harder he fought for it, the further it seemed to be out of his desperate grasp.

Floating in the seemingly endless darkness, Zexion never gave up his fight, he simply took breaks in his hard pressed attempts at pulling out from beneath the thick surface of unconsciousness. The first break he took was more or less accidental, and occurred after a prolonged nightmare where the burning seemed as though it would never stop licking away at what little sensation he had preserved in the darkness. Out of sheer exhaustion, he momentarily paused in his attempt to reawaken himself, focusing instead on a much needed respite in the calming warmth. As he did so, the smallest twinge of sensation in what he pinpointed as his left hand came to fruition, at all once there, and then gone again. In a hasty attempt to bring the sensation back, Zexion tried focusing where he’d felt the sensation amongst the darkness, only for it to seem further away with each grasping effort. He found the longer he tried to focus his energy on bringing the sensation to himself, unintentionally exploiting what little energy he had in his conscious awareness, the less there seemed to be for him to hold onto; and once again, he was thrust against his will into a burning nightmare that strangled the energy right out of him.

It was at that moment that Zexion understood exactly what he was doing to himself. He was unintentionally forcing himself deeper and deeper into his unconsciousness, sapping his limited energy in a way that only prolonged his awakening.  His rebellious fire was now doing the opposite of what it did while he was conscious, the deep smolder serving little more purpose than to engulf him in a bed of destructive flames that burdened his energy like a parasitic infection. Learning how not to fight what was holding him down refuted nearly every hard learned lesson in all of the almost twenty years Zexion had walked this Earth, but he was willing to take a break just this once. Maybe this was his body’s way of telling him he needed to cool down for a little while, and that fighting when there wasn’t any immediate danger was not only carelessly wasting energy, but downright idiotic.

Zexion, in spite of himself and his innate behavior, let himself rest. He no longer fought every waking moment to pull himself from below the blanket of unconsciousness, instead simply letting it be. His body knew what was best for itself, even with his overbearing mind attempting an override of the natural functions. Fighting was futile, and Zexion may have been a fighter by nature, but a good fighter always knows when to quit a losing battle.

After he’d truly given up the ghost, Zexion began to slowly find himself amongst the darkness. The warmth pooled languidly around his body still, though slowly began to recede as he let himself be. Feeling cooled the crown of his head first, trickling slowly in large droplets from an open faucet down his forehead, ears, and brows. His facial muscles twitched with a minute vitality, but it was still so much more than he’d had before.

The cooling continued down his face, bringing awareness to his eyes, nose, lips, and chin with sporadic muscle movement. It was a painfully slow process, but after what felt like an eternity of cooling drips, Zexion’s awareness of his own head and face was a certain level of acute consciousness, even if it was a bit hazed. It was a strange feeling, as if he were disembodied, and simply a beheaded persona floating through a dreamless sleep.

The drips continued down, cooling the warmth around his neck until he was aware of the mild burning where the infected’s teeth had broken his skin and pulled him under to the state he was now. He felt his brows twitch slightly against the annoyance of the pain, though attempted to remain unfocused and calm. Doing so had gotten him this far, and he wasn’t ready to quit finding the remainder of his body. The lengthy stay in the Grand Unconsciousness Hotel had been nice, but he was more than ready to check out.

Nonetheless, it was a long time coming until his shoulders and the entirety of his torso were brought to his attention. The first drops touched his neck, slowly trickling down like rain against the smooth skin, and pooling in the deep hollows above his collarbone. The cooling awareness flowed over the protruding bone, dripping down the jagged edges to occupy the space in between his shoulder joint, and bringing awareness to his shoulder as a whole. It cooled the warmth on the front and back of his body, trickling ever so slowly to the top of his biceps.

The coolness spread down his arms, running through the distended veins projecting from beneath his skin until it bloomed through the tips of his fingers, and brought awareness to even the hangnail that’d been bothering him for a week prior to events that led him to the state he was in now. The minor annoyances, side effects of being a very breakable human, were soon little blessings; little reminders, painful as they may be, that he was alive and humming with a subtle vitality that had been absent for too long. His chest was soon to become consciously visible to him, even as he continued to swim through the murky waters of a comatose state. Knowing where at least some of his body was gave him a piece of mind he’d been anxiously searching for since he came out of an all but dead state of unconsciousness.

The moment the first cooling drops touched his ribcage and sternum, the darkness was filled in with awareness of the hollow thrumming of his heart below the surface, and that became a welcome reminder of his subdued energy. His organs had definitely remained intact inside of his body, and contrary to prior belief, were not a globular mass of pulsating viscera wading endlessly through the warm darkness. A vague ache blossomed in what he presumed to be his stomach, but as with the mild burn of the bite, he ignored it as best he could to let the cooling energy do its job.

Slowly, bit by bit and piece by piece, the picture of Zexion’s body became clearer and more defined. After his torso had become a hub for his life energy, the cooling drips picked up pace as they fluidly rushed over his body. Streaks of awareness filled in the empty space around his abdomen, working its way outwards towards his pointed hipbones. The awareness dripped off of his hips once the darkness was expelled and filled in with substance, spilling messily to the top of his thighs, and rushing a pooling coolness down the length of his legs.

His calves were nearly the last bit of his body cooled, and soon after were his heels, the soles of his feet, and finally his toes. Every inch of his body was soon brought back to him, and Zexion could feel the thrum of life reacquainting itself with his veins. A human warmth, nowhere near as smothering as that he’d been drowning in, soon filled his limbs like an injection of long overdue awareness. His heart seemed to function just a little bit better, the rhythm just a little bit stronger, and his sense of self just a little bit sharper. The heaviness of his unconscious state seemed to lighten, and all at once, fade away to nonexistence.

Feeling dissipated again, but not for long. Soon, Zexion felt himself in a wholesome way that was incomparably sharper and more astute than what he’d felt beneath the heavy weight of unconsciousness. Every little ache and pain that had settled into his body while he waded blindly through the turbid warmth became aware to him, and with a gasping breath as he was pulled from beneath the water’s surface, his eyes were open.

It was if he’d been reborn into himself, coming back to his reality with a violently potent appreciation for cognition. Sun filtered blindingly through a window no more than three feet from his body, haphazardly patched by a few heavily weathered oak boards. Tiny dust motes danced along the miniscule air current blowing in with the sunlight from the open spaces between the boards, giving his hazy focus something to allow his eyes to adjust back to some degree of clarity.

With a heavy sigh passing over his chapped lips, Zexion struggled with what sense to focus on first. Being so startlingly conscious after chalking up his comatose state to be a near-death experience, he accepted the fact he was going to need a little time before feeling completely human again. Blinking once to clear the lingering haze glossing over his cloudy eyes, Zexion first noticed the way his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, taking shape with the ridges as a desert dryness replaced his salivary glands with sand depositories. He felt as though dust had settled in the back of his throat, and an attempt to swallow only led to a short bout of coughing. Dehydration was the number one concern after getting bitten, having spent who knows how long sweating out a hospital grade fever as his cells denied the infection.  He would need water, or something that would replenish the ridiculous amount of liquid lost, and soon.

Attempting to maneuver his tongue about his mouth to prep himself for speaking if need be, Zexion noticed the tingling ache filtering through every inch of his body. Remnants of the infection still lingered in his cells, and after being stagnant while the worst of the process wracked his small frame, he was bound to be stiff and sore for the next few days, at the very least.

Focusing beyond the stiffness and the ache settling into his body, Zexion hadn’t yet taken his surroundings into account, and only when something creaked beneath him did he notice the soft, spongey surface cradling his frame. Placing his palms flat against the surface, Zexion ran his hands across what felt like a mattress; his fingertips rising and falling over dips from the seams. A faint smell of sour cloth and urine assaulted his nose, followed by the slight undertones of the stale odor of air gone stagnant with sleep.

The mix of scents was almost nauseating, and Zexion decided in that moment he didn’t want to be laying down any longer. The sooner he distanced himself from the scents, and the sooner he was physically on his feet, then the sooner he could reacquaint his body with the process of movement and start the process of feeling human once more.

With a pained grunt spilling over his lips, Zexion braced his hands against the mattress and pushed himself into a sitting position. The distinct sound of fabric brushing skin echoed around the still room, and he gained an awareness of his clothing clinging protectively to his thin frame. It appeared no articles had been removed from his body, even the gun holster still clung like a small, frightened child to his thigh. It was almost comforting to know he remained unexposed while unconscious, that is until Zexion panicked slightly with the realization his gun was missing.

In an instant, his eyes were searching the room, taking in where he was. Zexion had found himself laying on a bare mattress, the surface covered in a plethora of copper and deep yellow stains in various sizes and circular shapes. The white surface of the mattress itself sported a musty tan colour, the telltale sign of age, water damage, or presumably both. There was no bedframe, merely a twin size mattress laid in the middle of what appeared to have been a bedroom at one point. Kitty cornered against the furthest wall, the skeletal remains of a dresser stood like an ominous presence, the oaky tones of the wood rotted to a near blackness. A few stray drawers lingered at the base of the dresser, all bearing the same stage of rot, and appearing to have a few holes puncturing the wood.

The wallpaper surrounding every bit of wall, peeling in some places but rotted away entirely in others, was a plain blue with thick grey water stains creeping up from the paneling at the baseboard. The stains rose and fell over the paper in waves, mirroring the way the sea laps at the shore. Rainwater and rot ate away at the colour and appeal of the wallpaper, leaving the small bedroom to take on a ramshackle personality no different than nearly any other house left, ownerless, to decay.

The flooring appeared to have been originally plush carpet, but under the relentless weight of neglect and damage, was little more than a stained piece of crap smeared over the entirety of the room; a matching blue to the walls, faded and browning. Pieces of broken glass littered the floor by the window, and scraps of paper appeared ground into the carpet near the dresser.

A collapsed curtain rod lay bunched up in the corner, sans a curtain. Small chucks of wood littered the floor in a sporadic pattern, all of it rotten and tainting the air with the distinct smell of decomposing trees. Zexion suddenly felt a twinge of uncertainty and confusion plague him, never having seen this room before.

Along with the uncertainty, there came a lingering sense of dread. Zexion had scanned the entirety of the decaying room twice, and still, no sign of his gun. There was no sign another human life existed alongside his in this place, and being left defenseless after coming into consciousness with a physically weakened body was not a position he wanted to be in.

Against his better judgement, Zexion decidedly told himself to investigate the rest of the house before panicking entirely. The last time he’d remembered having his gun was when he was with Riku, just before the infected took him down and made a meal out of the side of his neck. Absentmindedly, a hand came up to touch the spot, and his fingertips were met with the abrasive feeling of medical tape holding something soft and cottony against his skin where the wound would have been. It was almost startling, having expected to feel the imprint of teeth marks marring his skin; bound to leave yet another ugly scar. The thought saddened him, but Zexion knew he could mourn over his loss of aesthetic appeal later when his gun, or any weapon really, was safely held in his grip.

With a miffed sound aimed at the limited motor functioning in his body, Zexion scooted his aching self to the edge of the mattress, attempting to push down the pained protests edging their way through all he was. “I’ve had worse…” He croaked out to himself as motivation, the sound of his voice harsh and grating; sound waves riding the sandpaper dryness scratching at his throat.

Clenching his teeth, Zexion paused for a brief moment to catch his shaken breath, only to use his palms as an uneasy leverage to force himself to stand. With his weight now balanced entirely on his legs, he swayed miserably, stumbling over a faint numbness crawling through the veins in his lower body.

It took a moment of comical flailing before Zexion’s balance righted itself once more, and he sighed lowly. His hair felt neat against his head as the skull the follicles were anchored in moved with the unsteadiness of a newborn deer on weak legs, and bringing a hand up to touch his hair surprised him with a neat bun nestled snugly near the crown of his head. Had he gone unconscious with a bun intact? He couldn’t remember, but opted not to question it. If his hair was tied up, he was a happy camper. The last thing Zexion wanted to worry about now was an oil and sweat soaked curtain hanging lifelessly against his neck, giving him shivers when a stray hair mimicked the feeling of numerous small legs creeping across his skin.

Rolling his neck to bring some more life into his sore body, Zexion toddled towards a closed oak door that sufficiently shut him off from the rest of the house he was in. He was riddled with a cautious anxiety as his fingers met the cold knob, grasping around the handle, and turning with a deep inhale.

The door creaked as Zexion cracked it open a couple of inches, peering out over what appeared to be an open floor plan to a single story house. His eyes roamed cautiously over a wide area, encompassing both the kitchen and living rooms, and separated by a row of counters near the last third of the room. Everything was still, a raw scent of age tainting the air outside of the bedroom. Widows were haphazardly boarded up in a way similar to that of the bedroom, but enough sunlight filtered in to give a clear picture of the house.

Zexion detected no movement, no dead pungency to taint his lungs, and exhaled slowly as he made his way out of the bedroom and into the living room. The house itself appeared to have been ransacked long ago, people who’d been desperate for anything to further their own survival had left nothing more than a few sad looking couches pushed against the far wall with duct tape repairs over the holes, scraggly curtains hanging like ghosts from rusted curtain rods, and empty containers and boxes that littered the hardwood floor in no particular pattern. A small, quaint looking fireplace made of brick seemed to be the only thing remaining entirely intact as it stood, lonely, gazing at what was left of the couches that had once held romantic nights in.

The kitchen counters appeared to have fared better than even the flooring, being made of perhaps marble or something hard enough to withstand the elements of rain and age, but it was obvious the cabinets housed below them were one of the first places to be searched through for supplies. The drawers were all missing, leaving gaping holes of various sizes in their place, and the cabinet doors hung at awkward angles, or as with the drawers, were missing entirely. A fridge stood proudly pushed against the furthest wall, rust stains cascading down its aged surface like a copper rain. Squatting beside the fridge was a stove in the same condition, the burners long since dead as a thick layer of rust replaced where flame had once prepared meals.

Zexion stood, nearly motionless, letting his eyes simply wander the sight before him. It was saddening, in truth, to see what had become of homes that once sheltered the lives of unsuspecting people just going about their days. The house seemed to be newer, in terms of construction and design, but it was no bachelor pad. He could almost picture a college student, no older than himself, the first time away from home making a life for himself here. Zexion closed his eyes, the image of the house stained against the surface of his brain, and simply imagined.

He, himself, had never and would never get the opportunity to experience all the rights of passage. Little moments like this allowed him a blissful break from the constant worry, and given the calmness, he allowed his thoughts to stray from finding a weapon if only for a moment. Zexion wanted to picture life in this house, before the chaos and destruction, based off of stories he’d heard as a child.

In his mind, Zexion owned this property, paid his bills, went to a community college, and thrived in an environment cultivated strictly for himself. He’d come home from college, a few friends and maybe a romantic interest at his heels, and open his door to them. They’d all shuffle into the living room, collapsing in a tired heap of students drained from tests and classwork. Zexion would make a beeline for the fridge, its surface covered in pictures held on by kitsch magnets, and pull out a six pack he’d been saving to drink when he wasn’t alone. He’d grab a couple bags of chips from the cabinets stocked with cheap college food- ramen, easy mac, the works –and find his way to his pile of friends taking up the living room.

An accurately aimed bag of chips would hit his loud mouthed best friend hanging upside down, making him squirm and complain; nearly falling on his head as he dropped from the couch to the floor. The atmosphere would fill with a chorus of laughter, and the red sting of shame would flush through his friend’s cheeks as he opted to sit like a normal person would. Zexion would set the six pack on the coffee table, pulling two bottles out, and handing one to his romantic interest; whom he’d just so happen to find the only empty seat next to. His friends knew, all along, how they’d flirt with one another but dare not make a move, and all along they’d try in every situation to foster some kind of relationship bud.

Popping the tops, bottles would clink in a celebratory optimism because at least they’d all failed the difficult final together. Zexion would bring the cold rim to his mouth, taking a long swig, and looking longingly to his sort-of date. They’d smile back, nudging him in the side, and take a swig of their own. Zexion, much to his best friend’s chagrin, would pull a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from a side table with his arm’s reach, and would finally find an excuse not to clean up the empty soda can that’d been there for the past two days. He light one, taking a long, thoughtful drag, and tilting his head back against the plush back of the couch, would exhale in a deep content. The pack would make its rounds around the group, and everybody would take one; even if they all complained about how shitty they felt after or how much their clothes reeked.

The soda can would become a make shift ash tray, and Zexion would flick the end of his cigarette over the rim, taking another swig of his beer. The bitter bite would assault his tongue, and he’d jokingly complain of the piss flavored aftertaste. His best friend would throw something at him, whatever was nearest his hands, and he’d weakly dodge the attack; nearly spilling his drink in the process. His sort-of date would throw something back, making Zexion laugh freely, and giving the atmosphere a playful comradery. Everything would feel right in that moment, and the stress of life would melt away beneath the comfortable interaction between friends.

Eventually, most of his guests would get tired and head for home, thanking him for a fun evening. The drained bottles would be replaced into the cardboard pack they’d come from, the can full of ash, and the cigarette pack running low. Zexion would be left with his romantic interest, and he’d habitually light up another cigarette; losing count how many that’d been for the evening. His date would pluck the thing from his fingers after his first drag, smiling coyly, and taking a long drag for themselves. Zexion would shrug, unbothered by the fact, and would wordlessly ask for a drag himself by extending a hand towards his date. The filter against his lips would taste like the mouth he’d been daydreaming about kissing since they’d met, and he'd sigh the smoke out in a content desire.

A comfortable silence would fall over the room, and his romantic interest would be close to him, their body pressed warmly against his own. Zexion would put a hand on their knee, looking at them with a deep fondness in his eyes. They’d stay there for a bit, sharing the cigarette until it found its final resting place amidst the other bits of ash and butts in the can. With smoke tainting his lips, and a haze from the dusky evening throwing shadows over his face, Zexion would put a hand against the cheek of his should-be partner, smiling softly.

They’d lean in close, their bodies magnetized, until the smooth skin of their lips would brush with hot breaths and wanting gasps. Zexion would apply the initial bit of pressure, savoring every single second of the other’s mouth on his own. His date would respond positively to him, deepening the kiss slowly at first, and then all at once dripping with wanton desire.

Fervently wet sounds from their mouths would fill the atmosphere until they both needed to draw away for breath, foreheads touching, cheeks and lips flushed pink. Zexion would ask if they wanted to stay the night, and they’d pause, only to agree within the moment. Smiling briefly, he’d go back in for his date’s lips, igniting another fire between them.

By the time his house was faintly glowing against the pressing blackness of night, they’d have moved to the bedroom; stumbling over stray shoes and clothing as their lips never disconnected. Zexion would crawl over his date as they lay flat against his bed, bracing his hands on either side of their head, and assaulting their lips once more. Lithe hands would begin ridding them of their clothing, a messy disarray of hot desperation creating an indiscernible line of where one of their bodies began and the other ended. Wandering lips and hands would spark the first trickle of a sweat bead down flushed skin, the soft sighs and groans of pleasure echoing wet sounds. Zexion would find himself swimming through his emotions, and convincing himself he was in love with this one person who looked so perfect with their jaw slack, hands gripping his sheets, loud sounds flowing past their kiss swollen lips. He wouldn’t mind his sheets were stained with sweat and cum, wouldn’t mind that the stagnant air stank of intimacy, and he certainly wouldn’t mind when his date would bite against his shoulder to stifle their unbridled pleasure.

They’d collapse together after riding the tidal wave of orgasm, and Zexion would find his chest rising and falling rapidly as he willed himself to cool down. His date would curl up beside him, pressing soft, apologetic kisses to the deep bruising marks littering the skin of his neck. He’d make a pleased noise, a tired smile gracing his lips, and pull the sheets around their sticky bodies. They’d whisper sweet nothings to one another in the dark, knowing without asking they were together now. Curled in a tangle of limbs, they’d fall asleep, both taking refuge from bad dreams in each other.

In the morning, Zexion would be the first awake, and he’d gingerly detach his partner’s limbs from himself, pulling out from the thick tangle of sheets. His hair would be in a sex and sleep induced dishevelment, but he wouldn’t mind much, instead searching the floor for the pair of briefs that’d been discarded in his haste to get naked. Eventually he’d locate them beneath his lover’s discarded shirt and slip them on, walking quietly from the bedroom to the kitchen. Rubbing at his eyes and yawning, he’d find an odd soreness in his back, only to be reminded of last night’s activities. The faintness of it would make him smile, and he’d brew a pot of coffee.

Walking back to the bedroom as the coffee pot whistled and whined, he creep up to the side of his sleeping lover, putting a gentle hand on their hip, and peppering kisses along their face. He’d bid them good morning, finding a deep affection for the sleepy disorientation plaguing his tired partner. Zexion would offer breakfast, and when his partner showed resistance with waking up, he’d simply tell them to come out to the kitchen when they were awake enough to function.

Zexion would return to the kitchen, fixing two cups of coffee as the machined whined with completion. His cupboards would be searched for the all-purpose waffle and pancake mix, and in no time he’d be pouring batter onto an oiled griddle. The smell of food would rouse his tired partner, and as Zexion was busy flipping pancakes, a pair of arms wound wrap wound his waist, and a pair of lips would give wordless good morning kisses to his shoulder. Zexion would smile and lean back into the touch, indicating there was coffee that needed drinking.

Neither would be suffering from a hangover, but both would still be intoxicated with the fresh romance that was long overdue. Zexion would finish cooking their breakfast and fix two plates, and they’d sit on the couch together as the morning news droned on in the background from a small television that was rarely used. He’d sneak in small kisses to their face, eventually tasting the food he’d made straight from their lips. With an uncanny playfulness, his partner would steal a bite of food from his plate, only for Zexion to demand it back, and be fed straight off of the other’s fork.

They’d prolong cleaning up after they’d finish their meal, and simply rest comfortably on the couch together. Zexion would doze off leaning against his partner, and the teasing comments and playful kisses would stir him. He would keep his eyes closed, but a smile would be plastered against his lips, and he’d know there wasn’t anywhere else on this Earth he’d rather be.

Lost in his fantasy, Zexion was startled back into his dreary reality by the heavy sound of footsteps outside. The lids of his eyes flicked back, and his body coiled defensively in an instant reaction to the sound. He silently cursed himself for letting his mind wander, instead of doing what was imperative, and searching for a weapon he could defend himself with.

Breathing slowing to a painful rate, Zexion stood, listening as the footsteps drew nearer, only to stop suddenly in front of what he assumed to be the front door. The door itself was tucked away in a walled enclave, almost like a miniature scale foyer, and the construction as it was hollowed the sounds in a deafening kind of way. Zexion could feel his heart race against his ribcage, and he felt a paralytic fear course through his veins.

Thoughts raced through his mind at lightning speed, making it almost impossible for him to focus on a single one. He knew that if somebody attacked him now, they had the upper hand in the most unfair display of weakness. Zexion was too weak to fight, and he despised hand to hand combat in any and all forms. Lest his life depended on it, he’d avoid it at all costs. But as he was now, he had brought child strength fists to a gun fight, and suddenly feared a total loss.

Zexion felt his breath hitch in his throat as the sound of the door hand being turned echoed through the silent house, creating a deafening panic in him. His hands balled into fists, and he briefly wondered if the infected knew how to operate doors. Either way, be the intruder infected or not, he was up shit’s creek without a paddle; or more realistically, a weapon.

The door whined as it opened, creaking softly as it was closed with a delicate hand. Zexion stood, frozen, wide-eyed, and panicked as he waited for whatever it was coming through that door to face him, and perhaps take his life after he’d only so recently maintained conscious control again.

Footsteps against the hard oak floors resounded through the house before a tall, lanky figure appeared from behind the wall of the enclave. Long silver tresses dangled at shoulder length to the surface of a tattered white tee shirt, the black straps of a backpack winding around the broad shoulders like a snaking arm clinging in desperation to whatever it could hold safely onto. Teal eyes, glazed with the slight shimmer of tears flicked up, meeting Zexion’s cloudy cerulean for a moment.

Riku paused, his face a blatant expression of pain from deep within him, only for a moment to pass and his eyes to widen; efficiently doubling their size.

“Holy…holy fucking shit.” He murmured, dropping the backpack against the floor with a muted thud, and staring at Zexion as through he’d seen a ghost.

Zexion’s heart had begun to calm some of the anxious beating, releasing the tension built up in his aching muscles. The relief seeing Riku was apparent, and he wavered slightly as weakness settled back into him to replace the sickness of readied tension. “Riku.” He spoke, voice dry and throat protesting against the action. “Fuck, um, hi. I thought you were going to be something or somebody that wanted to kill—”

His words were cut short by Riku nearly sprinting the distance from the door to Zexion, his arms winding around his back and hips in a protective embrace. The action stole the words from Zexion’s lips, freezing his body with a new type of tension that he couldn’t identify with any emotion. It simply exploded from within him the moment he was pulled into a hug, and Zexion felt a soft gasp pass over his lips.

“Jesus Christ, holy shit, fuck…” Riku spoke in a shaken voice as his body quivered while he held onto Zexion, taking his ability to fight with the warmth he radiated. “I thought you were going to die or turn or some shit. Jesus fucking Christ, ZC. You were so unconscious and I couldn’t wake you up. You’ve been out for three days and you would just scream sometimes. Sometimes it would only be for a few seconds, sometimes for a couple minutes, but when you started to convulse in your sleep you would scream for hours at a time. I had to hold your head for you because I went out on a scavenge mission and I came back and you were choking on your own vomit. I got so scared when you would stop breathing sometimes and fuck, I didn’t think I’d ever see you awake again. When I left this morning you were murmuring something about needles and how you didn’t want it and then you just screamed. You screamed so terribly, I was afraid you were dying in your sleep. But you’re awake now, fucking fuck, you’re actually alright.”

The news brought a cold feeling to Zexion’s chest. Three _days_? He’d been out that long? And while he was out, he’d been actually screaming when he didn’t think he had lungs to scream with? A sudden feeling of guilt washed over him like a gentle wave rolling in from the sea, and he could feel a hot tear drip onto his cheek as Riku rocked him ever so slightly in his arms.

“I thought we were both going to die. I had to flee from the horde with you, and I couldn’t go back to the tracks because there were just so many of them. I had to run for miles until I got to this town, and I found this house. It’s small and already pretty fortified so I figured it’d be the best way to defend you. They followed me for so long, I had to stand out front of the house and shoot all of them before I could come in and check on you. You soaked your clothes through with sweat and the vomit…” Riku’s voice was wavering like a limp piece of paper caught in a stiff wind. His arms tightened their hold around Zexion, and the smaller felt safe, in an awkward kind of way. The way Riku’s strong shoulders shook against him, his chest heaving slightly, it made Zexion wonder exactly what Riku had to deal with while he was unconscious. “You vomited blood so many times, and every time you did it would choke you. It was so hard making sure you were alright. And you neck, oh god, your neck. It bled for so long, I tried so hard to stop the bleeding but I cut my hands and I didn’t want to touch the blood. I thought you dead for so long. Fuck, just—fucking motherfuck. You’re fucking up, you’re breathing, and awake, and I can’t believe it.”

“Riku, I…” Zexion began, stopping when a broken sob spilled messily over Riku’s lips. The sound was a mixture of devastation and relief, and the way Riku cradled his body was so gentle, yet so firm. Zexion couldn’t remember another person treating him so gingerly since his before his parent’s death, and the strange feeling of longing welling up in his chest stung his eyes with the formation of tears.

His mind disconnected from his survival instinct, and his arms rose up with an unsure tentativeness to Riku’s body. He lightly returned the hug, finding an unfamiliar comfort in the way his warmth radiated from beneath the ragged shirt and into his arms. Zexion closed his eyes, clenching the weakness of tears out of them, and taking a deep breath. The rancid odor leaking from both his body and Riku’s didn’t faze him, and he simply let himself apologize for the trouble. “I’m so sorry.” Zexion said, his voice soft, though cautiously so. “I’m sorry you had to deal with everything that comes with the nature of a Carrier. I’m not that careless, it’s been a long while since I’ve been bitten. I’m sorry you had to see all that you did.”

“Stop it! Stop it, just…shut up!” Riku nearly wailed, something deep within him shattering audibly and creating a thick rift in the still air. He pulled away from Zexion, hands grabbing his shoulders, and looking as if he wanted to shake the shorter male. Tears stained thick tracks down his reddened cheeks, and the pain swimming through the colour of his bloodshot eyes bore a hole into Zexion. “Just don’t…don’t get bitten again. I don’t think I could take it. I can’t…it’s not…”

Riku clenched his eyes and drew his thin silver brows in over the bridge of his nose, tears edging their way out of the corners of his eyes. Every small facet in his face, every premature line from stress, filled in with a twisting pain that could come only from the deepest hurt of the past. Zexion’s arms lowered, and he carefully removed Riku’s hands from his shoulders. His eyes watched as Riku looked away, snatching his hands back, and holding them into his chest as if to protect himself.

He reopened his eyes, gazing at the aged floor, and sniffled to swallow the pain that’d risen inside of him. “I’m sorry.” He murmured, looking shamed. “Just…forget that, alright? It’s been a long few days and I’m tired.”

“So why don’t you go and sleep?” Zexion said, wondering if the opposite side of the mattress would be usable. “I’m sure I can watch this place while you do.”

“You can’t.” Riku said, turning his gaze back to Zexion. “Not right now at least.”

“And why not? I’m fine now that I’m awake. I managed to pull myself from that room and make it out here. I think that I’m fucking competent enough to—”

“We only have one gun between the two of us, and it’s out of ammo.” The broken teal searched Zexion’s face, and he frowned.

Zexion stood there, shocked, and blinked as he lowered his gaze. “One gun…” He repeated, the words tasting sour on his mouth. “…And whose is it?”

“It’s mine.”

The memory of being knocked down, the pistol leaving his grip, it flashed before Zexion, and he felt a cold anger rush through his body. Forcing his head back up to meet Riku’s eyes, he could feel the anger dripping slowly into his face. “Why didn’t you grab my fucking gun when I dropped it?!” He burst out, suddenly aware of the emptiness against his thigh, the holster that was absent of its former resident. The most important object he had in this world, the last thing he could tangibly hold from his past, and it was gone. Rotting on some dirt path, covered in bugs and dew, and the thought twisted Zexion’s stomach.

“I tried!” Riku said, biting his lip in anxiousness. “But there were too many of them to save both you and the gun, but I couldn’t do it without getting you torn to bits! I saw it though, when I picked your body up, the gun…”

“Don’t.” Zexion said, feeling himself weak and dizzy. He swayed on his feet, finding Riku’s steadying hands on his shoulders. It was too soon for him to be so worked up, yet he was finding it difficult to calm down and rationalize.

“It was your father’s, wasn’t it?”

“I said don’t!” Zexion shouted, shoving Riku’s hands off, and sinking to the floor. He’d lost it. After making that promise, his parent’s dying wish, to protect that gun; to protect his precious life with that gun. After thirteen years with that gun, in one day, he’d suffered in the most extreme way he could remember, and he’d lost that damn gun. “Fucking don’t…” His leg drew into his chest, and Zexion hugged his knees.

“Zexion,” Riku said, voice soft, attempting comfort. “You name was engraved on the side. That’s the Z in ZC, isn’t it? You’re Zexion. Zexion Campanelli.”

Zexion felt his chest clench at hearing his name for the first time in over thirteen years. The bitter memory of his father, blood pouring from his mouth, clutching his six year old son’s hand, whispering to him, ‘ _Never forget, Zexion. Never forget that you’re a Campanelli.’_ flashed through his mind, sending a pang of unhappiness to his chest. “You weren’t supposed to know.” Mournful sadness tinged at Zexion’s voice, and he wanted to cry. “Nobody was supposed to know but me. I wanted to keep that name for myself. My father told me to never forget that name, never forget that it’s a part of me. Well, now you fucking know my name, Riku. I hope you’re fucking happy.”

“I’m not.” Riku said, looking down at the weakened body, seeing Zexion in an entirely different light now. “I know that you’re the most dangerous person to grace this planet. You’ve been dangerous since you were a little kid. I know, because I was in the Utah Zone. I was in that group that got ejected, except I had nobody. No parents, no family, nobody to hold my hand and teach me. I remember you, your parents, the two kids that watched their mother die. I remember all of it.”

Riku squatted down to Zexion’s height, his eyes burning with emotion so deeply raw, it felt toxic. “And I remember that night when you watched your parents die, and you dad gave you that gun, you took it and cried with their dead bodies. I watched you sob over the only people on this planet who you could call a family. I watched you leave the rest of the survivors, at six years old, and find way to wreak havoc wherever you went. I watched all of it, Zexion. And I’m sorry that I couldn’t save your gun, but at least you’ve been able to save yourself. You were given everything you needed to, and everything you had readied you for the world. And I want to get that gun back for you, but it’s too dangerous. You parents would want you to keep surviving, not waste all your efforts getting a gun back.”

“Fuck you!” Zexion said, teeth grating as the bitter memories he’d buried so long ago were unearthed. “You have no idea what that gun means to me!”

“Oh, don’t I?” Riku asked, his voice shockingly calm, despite the tears pooling rapidly in his eyes, and the sharp crack of his voice. “When Axel and Saïx left, they took off with a solid gold locket that had a picture of my mother; the only physical proof I actually had to remind myself I came from a family. Don’t tell me about loss of precious things, Zexion, because you don’t think I know half as much as I do. You and I aren’t all that unalike, and the sooner you realize that, the easier it’ll be to get by. You don’t have a weapon anymore, and sentimental value aside, without it, you aren’t going to manage. So you better start putting your trust in me if you want to keep surviving.”

The words stung with a potent truth, and Zexion felt the anger bubbling beneath his skin fade to a disappointed truth. His eyes searched Riku’s for a moment, and only when he was sure he had a handle on his emotions did he open his mouth to speak.

“If you want my trust, Riku, fine. You’ve fucking got it. But don’t ever bring up Utah, don’t ever bring up my parents, and don’t ever, in my presence, bring up the past again. Trust isn’t easily won or freely given. Me saying this breaks everything I was taught. But you’re right. I want to survive, and I want to fucking live. And if that means putting faith in you, then fine. So be it. If we’re not so different, you’ll put your trust in me to.”

Riku almost laughed. “When you didn’t lunge for my throat just now, I already put my trust in you. You have my word; no history lessons or reliving the past. And, because I think it’s only fair…it’s Reichenbach.”

“What?”

“My last name. Riku Reichenbach. Third generation to the Reichenbach line, and the last of our kind.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Kingdom Hearts itself, this is a work of many a plot twist. Stay tuned.


	7. Sweetness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling sad and wanted to write something cute between these two assholes and this is what happened. It's not as long as some of the other chapters, but I'm feeling it.

The floor beneath his backside was rotting away with aged dampness and a penetrating chill, but Zexion remained there as a weak exhaustion flowed through his body with each strong thump of his heart. Emotional outbursts so soon after consciousness were counterproductive in way of healing, and he sighed deeply, feeling so grossly out of his element. The vacant holster against his thigh was a poignant reminder he’d been stripped of his livelihood, and no matter how terribly he wished to fight it, he was stuck in a codependent relationship with Riku until he could manage to get his hands on another gun.

Riku had certainly proved his staunchness and worth as a decent human being over the course of the last few days, but he was an enigma. The way he’d reacted seeing Zexion up and about had thrown off the shorter male’s previous schema for him, and he was left in the dark wondering just who Riku really was. Finding out they’d come from the same place and wound up reunited after a decade was suspiciously ironic, but Zexion felt due to the circumstances they’d both suffered through in that first month of exile, maybe they really did have more in common than either let on.

He hated not having a comprehensive understand of who and what his situation entailed now, and Zexion caught himself pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as a series of thoughts ran rampant through his mind. Zexion, having been the epitome of desolate loner for the past handful of years, found that he struggled with even the most basic human interaction. He had trouble holding his tongue, biting back the foul additions to his speech, and containing his opinions on the sorry state of life anybody with a beating heart was thrust into. It really hadn’t impacted the start of a cohesive force between the two of them yet, but he feared it might. After Riku hugging him, Zexion realized really needed to sit down and think about social cues and how to handle the emotions that followed.  

If he was honest with himself, Zexion hadn’t minded the brief feeling of contact as much as he led himself to believe. Riku’s arms had surrounded him with a feeling of strength and warmth, and it was something he’d been a stranger to for a long time. There hadn’t been a touch that wasn’t built on malicious intent given to him since he was in diapers and still learning to walk. His parents only ever really showed him affection when he was allowed to sleep in their bed, but once the three of them roamed the wastelands outside of the Utah Zone, hugs were something only his parents shared when his mother sobbed at the idea of losing their only son. The faint memories he had of being touched all carried a bitter resentment, seeing as those memories were all from what he’d gathered from his nightmares about his time in the Center.

With an exasperated sigh, Zexion let his finger and thumb relax from pinching at his nose. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to relive the horrors of the past right now, finding the emotional ties would simply be too draining to try and overcome. His emotional state wasn’t in prime condition as it was, and he didn’t need to break down in front of Riku. After hearing of the hell he’d put the other through while the infection ran its course through his body, he wanted to spare him anymore emotional trauma.

Looking to distract himself, Zexion let his eyes wander across the house to Riku, who’d gotten up and went to retrieve the backpack he’d dumped off on the floor before. The thing was slung over his shoulder almost effortlessly, and he headed into the kitchen with a disgruntled look on his face.

“Hey, Zexion, come here would you?” Riku called, looking to the other sitting on the floor. “I’ve got something I want you to see.”

“Right now?” Zexion asked, extending his legs from being drawn into his chest as his knees protested the position. His muscles whined in a stiff discomfort, and he groaned at the feeling, not being particularly fond of the dull ache wracking his frame.

“Yes, right now.” Riku answered as he used a hand to brush the thick layer of dust and dirt from the countertop, before carefully setting the backpack on the passably clean surface. The short whirr of the zipper echoed through the room, and Zexion sighed softly in preparation to stand.

He used his hands as leverage to raise himself, holding onto the wall behind him for a brief moment while sensation traveled back to his legs. He was still obnoxiously tired, even after being unconscious for days, and decidedly scheduled a nap on the agenda for the day.

Walking with slow steps, Zexion made his way into the dank kitchen and stood beside Riku to peer into the backpack. Unfortunately, his limited height was an inhibiting factor, and he sighed when the only thing he could catch view of was the top pocket of the backpack bulging with something unseen.

“Stand over there,” Riku gently took Zexion’s arm in his hand, guiding him to stand in front of the clean space he’d created on the counter. “Alright, so, while you were out, I’ve been going out on a couple of scavenge missions a day. We’re in a little cul de sac type neighborhood, and so there are quite a few houses nearby. Some of them are in surprisingly good condition, but not nearly as fortified as this place. Anyways, this place had been ransacked, but it seems like nobody else has been through here in a long time, and I found a whole collection of shit in other houses. I’m actually kind of shocked at how much I found.”

Picking the backpack up by the bottom, Riku turned it over, letting a plethora of items fall from the open pocket. Zexion’s eyes went wide at the sheer amount of stuff pouring out onto the counter. “How the ever living fuck did you find all of this?”

“I told you, I’m the best damn scavenger this piss poor world has to offer. If there’s anything to be found, you can bet your ass I’m going to find it.” Riku dropped the backpack off to the side, and using his hands, smoothed the small mountain of supplies over the counter. “Alright, now, we’ve got to take inventory of all this shit. It’ll give us a good idea of how long we can stay here while you get your strength back.” Riku furrowed his brows as he pushed a few things around, brushing more dust and dirt from the counter’s surface.

Zexion’s jaw almost gave way as he took into account the supplies Riku had found. He liked to consider himself a world class survivalist, but this level of finding was beyond even his own skill. “How long did it take you? To find all of this, I mean.”

“Ah,” Riku shrugged nonchalantly. “A couple hours a day. Probably close to nine.”

“You weren’t kidding when you said that. Man, I may be the best marksman this side of the Mississippi, but you sir, you have a talent for finding things. If I didn’t know any better, I’d be a little afraid to find your hand in my pocket.”

“Yeah, and what exactly would I find? A skinny ass? Thanks, but no thanks.” Riku laughed, putting his hands on Zexion’s shoulders, and relocating him to a more standoffish position away from the counter.

“I used to carry a switchblade on me,” Zexion said, wondering why Riku kept touching him when he could simply ask him to move. “But I got caught in a, let’s call it a close encounter, and couldn’t pull it out of the eye socket I’d driven it into.”

“Yeah, alright, so let me take this opportunity to remind myself _not_ to fuck with you.” Riku busied himself with sorting the pile, his eyes scanning over all he’d gathered. “Hey, do you smoke?”

“Smoke what, exactly?”

“Uh,” A faded pack of cigarettes was extracted from the pile, and Riku brought it close to his face as he squinted to read the label. “I think these are full flavors, can’t tell what brand though.”

Zexion wasn’t a smoker, he’d never picked up a cigarette in his life. “Give.” He held out a hand, and Riku placed the pack into his waiting grasp. “How old are these, I wonder? God, if they’re wet I bet they taste vile.”

“Why am I not surprised you throw chemicals? I guess that’s just a given, huh? Badassery can only stretch so far without a little accessory.”

“Whatever that means.” The smaller male huffed, flipping over the bent top of the carton, and finding seven cigarettes glaring at him. “Did you manage to find any matches while you were out?”

“No, but I always carry some on me. Let me finish sorting this shit and I’ll hook you up.”  

Zexion nodded, tucking the pack into his gun holster for lack of a better place to put it. He moved closer to the counter, watching as Riku made quick and diligent work of sort his findings into three distinct piles. “So, we have things we can eat and drink, basic survival stuff, and then just random shit?” Zexion asked, indicating to the conglomerate pile.

“That’s about the gist of it. I found a lot of canned food, some of it I left because it was no good, but all that I have here is still edible.” A decent pile of cans began to form as Riku sorted, and Zexion curiously examined what the selection of faded cans had to offer.

“Is that a can of pie filling?”

“Huh? Oh, hah, yeah it is. I thought we could share that for a dessert type thing. If you wanted to, I mean.”

“Sure, why not? I haven’t had sweets in…well, ever. I used to know a girl whose grandmother would sneak her candies, and sometimes she’d leave them on my doorstep. Along with dried flowers and other childish fascinations like that.”

“Kairi.” Riku answered in a soft tone, his fingers stopping dead in his sorting. “In the Utah Zone.”

“Uh, yeah, actually. How’d you know?”

“I used to play with her. It was Kairi, me, and this other boy named Sora. We used to walk around the wall, kick at the weak spots, and peer through. I always wanted to be outside, but Sora and Kairi, they told me it was dangerous. I never believed them, but look how wrong I was.” He laughed tonelessly, shaking his head and returning to his sorting. “Sorry, I forgot, no history lessons.”

“Ah, that one was my doing. I broke my own rule.” Zexion rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “Uh, anyways, did you notice that fireplace over there?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“Do you think it’s safe? It’s cold and damp in here, and I’m assuming it gets colder at night. I figured we could probably find enough random bits of wood and paper, maybe some branches from outside, and warm the place up.”

“Why don’t you go and check to see if anything’s trapped in the chimney? That’ll be your answer.”

Zexion nodded, feeling a strange tension fall over him and Riku. Setting his lips, he toddled from the kitchen to the living room, tripping over a slight rise in the flooring, and cursing audibly. “Who put that there?” He muttered, making a face at the floor, and continuing on his quest. Pushing past the couches angled around the fireplace, Zexion sunk to the floor, kneeling in front of the fireplace’s mouth. He leant in, peering up, but seeing no obstructions blocking the path to the outside world.

“Looks alright to me,” Zexion called to the kitchen, ducking out from beneath the fireplace, and finding himself sneezing once, twice; his senses aggravated by the dust and soot. “Might smell a little rank when we start the fire initially, but it should be safe to go ahead and use.”

“Then we can light it tonight. You know what else we could do? That mattress in the bedroom, it could be brought out here. We could move the couches back some, and you could sleep on the mattress in front of the fire. That way you don’t catch a chill.”

“What about you though?” Pulling himself from the floor with difficulty was getting old very quickly, and Zexion sighed as he wobbled on his legs. “You need the sleep more than I do. If we flipped the mattress over, you could sleep on it without worry of any of my bodily fluids bothering you. I’m sure where my lifeless body leaked doesn’t smell very pleasant.”

“Yeah, but that’s not fair to you.” Riku finished his sorting, and gestured for Zexion to come and look at the now organized findings. “I don’t really want you sleeping on those ratty couches. They’re not comfortable.”

“I take it you speak from experience?” The smaller of the two toddled his way back to the kitchen, and standing in front of the supply piles with admiration written clearly on his face.

“Sort of. I tried sleeping, but then I heard you screaming and I ended up staying up and tending to you.” As if to solidify the point he really hadn’t been sleeping, a large yawn overtook Riku, and he turned his head to stifle it. “Mmn, shit.”

“Alright, so two things. First of all, this looks like enough supplies to hold us out for a few weeks. I’m both impressed and astonished at how much you found, and from here on out will never question your abilities. Secondly, you’re going to start hallucinating soon if you don’t rest. Let me help you bring the mattress out here, and I want you to try and sleep. I can stand guard. Worse comes to worse, I’ll wake you up and we can figure out a plan of action. Things seem safe enough here, and you’ve paid your dues. Let me pick up the slack for a bit.”

Riku rubbed at his eyes, which hadn’t reddened any less since he shed a few tears before. The exhaustion was plainly written on his face, and it pained Zexion to know he’d been a burden to another person. He prided himself on being self-sufficient, but the past three days refuted that in a gross display of weakness.

“Are you sure? I can—”

“Yes. Stop. Arguing with me won’t further your efforts, and I want you to sleep.”

Riku worried his teeth on his lower lip, but did eventually give up with a defeated sigh. “Fine. Let me get the mattress though. Why don’t you push the couches against the wall and make a space?”

“Alright, deal. Now go,” Zexion made a shooing motion in the direction of the bedroom, not willing to hear any more protests. His body was doing enough of that, and the last thing he needed was Riku joining in on the irritation. The taller male nodded at this, disappearing into the bedroom. Zexion took himself to the living room, staring at the couches in thought for a moment.

After a moment, he simply pushed one couch against the far wall, though close enough to the fireplace he’d ensured a warm place for himself to sleep. The other couch was pushed off towards a bare wall beneath a boarded up bay window; the wooden platforms on the couch squealing annoyingly against the old wood floors. Zexion winced at the horrible sound, sighing when he’d finally pushed the couch to its necessary spot. Even though the couches were barely larger than loveseats, they were solidly built, and therefore had quite a bit of weight to them.

Simply moving the couches had tired Zexion out though, and with a groan, he made his way back over to the couch near the fireplace and sat down in a heap of sapped energy and rubber limbs. Riku was heard grunting as he stood the mattress up, pushing it past the bedroom door and across the oak flooring. When he’d managed to get the thing in front of the fireplace, he let it flop down, the side Zexion had been on now pressed against the floor.

“Ugh, this thing fucking stinks.” Riku wrinkled his nose, though wasted no time collapsing against the plush surface. “Gross.”

“Sorry,” Zexion apologized with a short laugh, watching as Riku curled up on himself, his back facing the smaller male sprawled on the couch.

“S’fine.” Riku murmured, a yawn causing a noticeable rise and dip in his muscled back, the definition stretching the thin material of his shirt. “I’m going to sleep now. There’s a book in the shit pile if you want to entertain yourself.”

Riku’s words were slurred slightly, his lids already heavily pressing down over his eyes. A deep sigh passed in and out of his body, and Zexion figured he had a good thirty seconds before Riku would be out like a light.

A gentle silence draped over the room, and Zexion found himself readjusting his sloppy position to lay across the couch, an arm tucked beneath his head, and his legs drawing in towards himself just a bit. The couch was lumpier than the mattress, and his body sank in as the middle fell through. He remembered the pack of cigarettes, and lazily drew them out from the gun holster, setting the pack on the back of the couch as not to crush the fragile smokes inside.

Over the course of a quiet few minutes, Riku’s body seemed to drain of the endless tension housed in his muscles, and his legs sprawled out from his body. His breathing filled the room’s deafening silence, deep sounds that gave way to the deep state of calmness his body had sunken into. Zexion found himself mesmerized, watching Riku’s body move so fluidly, the strong rise and fall of his shoulders with his breathing. His hair draped down, hanging behind his head like a silver curtain hiding all that buzzed around his mind. Minute muscles twitches were a sign he was falling under, and fast, and it gave Zexion a piece of mind Riku was catching up on the sleep he deserved.

Zexion stayed on the couch like that for what could’ve been hours, watching carefully over Riku as he slept. Over the course of his unconsciousness, Riku had rolled himself over to face the opposite direction, his sleeping face now visible. The way his face had fallen into relaxation, no tension filling in the lines, it washed a wave of strange emotion over Zexion.

He was entranced with watching Riku sleep, even if he felt almost like he was prying into an intimate moment he had no part of. Even so, he couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away, taking in how every bit of his face looked. The way his bangs fell over his eyes and forehead, it framed his face nicely, making him the picture of serenity. His pink lips were parted ever so slightly as deep breaths passed over them, his jaw slack and free of tension. Zexion found himself admiring the way his lanky limbs sprawled openly over the mattress’ surface, as if sleeping was the one time Riku felt he could let his guard down.

Zexion empathized with the notion, finding difficulty in letting his own guard down. But laying on the couch, his eyes soft and longing as he watched the serenity of sleep take Riku, he felt so raw. The wound on his neck throbbed, and he sighed, feeling a new, more painful stiffness entering his body as he remained immobile on the shoddy couch.

Against his own better judgement, Zexion toyed with the idea of moving to lay next to Riku on the mattress. It was certainly big enough for two people, and if Riku didn’t know, then no harm and no foul.

Sitting up, Zexion stretched his arms over his head with a groan, then slid off of the couch silently. He sat on his knees at the edge of the mattress, watching the steady rise and fall of Riku’s chest. It was if the other’s body beckoned him to come and lay beside it, to find a strange comfort among his sleep. Zexion felt a pang in his chest, giving his heart an extra kick that was unfamiliar to him. His throat felt even drier than before, and he swallowed thickly as his hands braced the plush surface.

As gently as he could, Zexion brought his body atop the mattress, laying as close to the edge as he could without risk of rolling off. Riku didn’t show any signs of waking up, and a deep sigh of sleep passed over his lips. Tucking both hands beneath his head, Zexion let his eyes once more linger on Riku’s face, taking in the picture of calmness he’d never seen on another person before. Zexion, alone with Riku and his thoughts, began to come to terms with the fact he barely knew how to do more than kill and survive. Talking to Riku was easy enough, but at the end of the day, he felt drained and like he’d spilled all the wrong things. He was a quick temper, and it was often difficult for him to reign in the raw emotion that flooded through his veins.

And knowing that Riku had stood guard on him for days, making sure he was safe, it filled Zexion’s chest with something strangely akin to the warmth in the hug he’d been attacked with earlier. He couldn’t describe it, couldn’t put a name to how he felt. He felt strangely unlike himself, and as much as he wanted to chalk it up to the fact he was still under the weather from the bite, he couldn’t really. Riku had only recently come into his life, after Zexion had so gracelessly stumbled into his, and he felt so raw, so human, around him. Maybe it was the fact Riku was the first person to show him kindness in over a decade, but something about him struck a chord inside of Zexion that he didn’t even know he had. It made his head hurt thinking about it, and he, in all honesty, didn’t want to overthink the matter.

Taking a few deep breaths of his own, Zexion found himself scooting across the mattress very lightly, bringing his body just a little closer to Riku’s. Their bodies were close enough that Zexion could reach out and touch the other, and beneath his head, one of his hands twitched with anticipation.

Holding his breath, Zexion gingerly removed his left hand from beneath his head, freezing entirely when Riku muttered something unintelligible, and stirred just enough to give himself the appearance of subdued consciousness. His hand searched along the mattress, more incoherent mumbling passing over his lips, fingertips brushing first with the clothing across Zexion’s hip. A soft, content sigh passed over his lips, and the strength he had became apparent as the smaller male was pulled closer, Riku’s hand bunched up in a loose grip on the fabric.

Zexion didn’t want to breathe, afraid he’d wake Riku. Worst case scenario, he could feign sleep, and after ‘waking up’ would explain the couch was too uncomfortable to lay on, but he was too weak to stand around. It might make Riku feel guilty for leaving Zexion on watch, but he could take his own guilt knowing his dignity and sanity would be spared.

It seemed like it would be unnecessary though, as Zexion watched with wide cerulean eyes the way Riku’s face fell back into a deep state of peace. With his hand fisted around Zexion’s clothes, he seemed even more relaxed now, and that same, unidentifiable warmth spread through Zexion. He wanted to will it out of his body, but Riku’s warm hand against his body only provoked it.

“What the fuck,” He whispered, dropping his hand over his face, and clenching his eyes and teeth against the anxiousness rising up inside of him. He was so confused all of a sudden, and regretted moving from the couch now that he was locked into a situation that prodded unforgivingly at the warmth.

“I got you…” Riku’s voice slurred, the words so heavily marred by the thick weight of sleep, it was almost hard to make out what he was saying. “S’okay…you’re safe now…”

Zexion relaxed his jaw and eyes, drawing his hand from his face. His eyes lingered on Riku’s face, watching the soft twitches of his mouth and the slight crease in his brows that shattered the perfect serenity he had before. He looked almost worried in his sleep, and the sight brought a crease to the bridge of Zexion’s nose. “What’re you dreaming about, Riku?” He asked in a soft, almost inaudible voice, knowing the question was more or less a rhetoric one.

Riku murmured something else, his grip tightening, and sighed again, but this time in almost anxiousness. The way his body began to tense, muscles coiling under the heavy weight of sleep, it was a telltale sign a bad dream was brewing behind his closed eyes. Zexion felt sympathy, his heart skipping once more beneath his ribs, and he drew his left hand away from his face.

“Shh, shh.” Zexion cooed softly, his hand shaking as he reached out very slowly, fingers hesitant as they hovered near Riku’s head. In a moment of weakness, he gently lowered his hand, letting the tips of his fingers brush over the long silver locks. Eyes glued to the sleeping face before him, Zexion indulged himself, and tucked a few long strands behind Riku’s ear, watching carefully at the small changes in his face. Little twitches relaxed his mouth, and he breathed heavily, having pulled Zexion close enough he could feel the sigh brush over his own lips.

Entranced again, heart hammering and blood flushing every inch of skin in its path, Zexion let his fingers card through the long tresses behind Riku’s ear; the sounds of his own heartbeat nearly drowning out the deep, steady breaths passing in and out of the other’s sleeping form.

“What am I doing?” Zexion questioned himself in a brief moment of sanity, finding his own peace in Riku’s strong grip, gently soothing him with the light touches to his hair. He wasn’t somebody who let his guard down like this, who crawled onto bare beds where other people slept and soothed their bad dreams away. And yet, here he was, lost among a sea of incomprehensible emotion, drowning beneath the unfamiliar warmth rushing like an ocean just below his skin. Becoming so entranced with Riku, it frightened him, but for once in his miserable life, Zexion indulged that fear.

After pulling his hand from Riku’s hair, Zexion’s fingers ached to touch his skin, to smooth the lines in his face. Very carefully, he ran two fingers along Riku’s angular jawline, finding a bit of jealously brewing at how smooth his skin was; how bare it was of terrible scars like he, himself wore over nearly every inch of his body. But he was glad, glad that Riku didn’t wear the scars. Riku didn’t deserve the curse of being a Carrier, and the horrors of experimentation that any Carrier would endure at the Center.

Drawing his brows together, Zexion continued to let his fingers very gingerly explore Riku’s face, following the curve of his jaw to his chin. He reveled silently in the feeling of another human being beneath his fingertips, finally discovering for himself what the fuss over physical contact was. The corners of his chapped lips began to tug up slightly as the soft breaths tickled against his hand. Zexion, in a bold move, supporting Riku’s chin with two fingers, very lightly ran the pad of his thumb over the other’s pink lower lip.

The skin of his mouth was chapped, but still held an uncharacteristic smoothness Zexion found nowhere on his own body. He considered himself to be a beast of coarse body and spirit, something so wholly untouchable and decrepit, he should have rotted away with the abandoned houses by now. But Riku, beneath his scarred hands and rough fingertips, was a smooth, purely human shock to the system. It startled Zexion how perfect and unmarred Riku’s skin was, and he silently cursed himself so being so drenched in hideous scars.

“Do I frighten you?” Zexion asked in a low whisper, pulling his hand away to gently hold against Riku’s face, running his thumb over the hollows of his cheeks in a gentle motion meant to soothe. “Because I should. I am so inhuman, so deprogrammed of my humanity. I don’t know how to talk to others, or how to understand certain social cues, or even how to reign in how I feel. I know very little beyond self-preservation, and I’m frightened by that. I’m frightened by the fact I can’t identify what I’m feeling right now, and the fact that I suppose I shouldn’t feel as I do. I wish there was some sort of manual I could read that could teach me how to be human, how to understand things I was never exposed to. I spent my years in a cage, tormented relentlessly, and denied sociability in the years it’s most pertinent. And then I walked, for a decade, by myself. Just my two feet, and the endless hordes desperate to kill me and eat my organs. You’re the first person who’s shown me any kindness, who’s protected me when I didn’t ask for it; let alone deserve it. You certainly are strange, Riku, and I’m sorry I’m strange in all the wrong ways that I am.”

Zexion sighed softly, drawing his hand away from Riku’s cheek, and hugging himself. The hand on his hip had relaxed some, but remained, and pumped warmth from Riku’s body into his own. Zexion let his eyes linger on Riku’s face, catching himself gazing at his mouth again. Why did he keep doing that? Of all the features on Riku’s face, he kept subconsciously looking at the other’s pink lips, parted just enough that soft sighs and sounds of sleep could spill over them. It made his head hurt, and he accepted the fact he knew very little about himself and why he did certain things.

Against his sanity pleading at him to get up and get the hell _away_ from Riku and all the weirdness he stirred up within himself, Zexion continued to lay there beside him, eyes now closed as he let his thoughts run rampant. He could feel his face curling into a picture of displeasure, of confusion, and of unhappiness all born from deep within his own misunderstandings. He wanted to know why things were as they were, why he did and didn’t do certain things, but they all escaped him. All these years he’d spent convincing himself he was human, that he had thick ties to his humanity, was no more than a façade. A transparent lie he was too blinded by his own stupidity to see past.

Laying there, caught up in his thoughts, Zexion hardly noticed Riku’s hand removing itself from his hips, and the soft groans coming from the opposite side of the bed.

“Mmph…Zexion?” Came Riku’s sleepy voice, confused but not offended. “You okay?” A warm hand rested against his shoulder, shaking him gently. Zexion felt a cold panic in his body, but he reverted to his original plan to feign sleep and discomfort from the couch. “Hey, hey. Wake up please.”

Zexion, in a show of sleepiness, rubbed at his eyes, yawning languidly. He pulled his hands away, and opening his eyes to meet a pair of teal boring into his face. “Oh, shit, hi.” He said, clearing his throat, and thanking the dryness for giving him the crackling edge to his voice that a person who was actually had been sleeping would have had. “Sorry, the couch was really uncomfortable so I ended up laying here. I was further over to the edge, but I guess I rolled over or something.”

Riku chuckled softly, his voice thick with sleep in a strangely appealing way. “I told you.” He teased, rolling onto his back with a deep yawn. “Man, I feel so much better. How long was I out?”

“Uh, some hours. I don’t have a surefire way to keep track of time, but it was a while.”

“Cool.” Riku murmured, stretching his long arms over his head, earning a few satisfying pops from his back. Relaxing back against the mattress, Riku rolled back over onto his side, looking at Zexion with a genuine softness in his eyes. “You hungry? After that sleep I sure am.”

“Yeah, okay. I could eat. What’s on the menu?”

“Something cold and canned. Or, hey, you know what? We’re adults. We could have dessert for diner. There’s that can of pie filling.”

“For dinner?”

“Why not?” Riku asked, a wide smile breaking out over his lips. “I’m sure we could both stand a little sugar in our blood. Especially you, after all the shit you’ve been through. I’m surprised you didn’t already crack a can of something open and take it down. You’re definitely going to need to eat to get your strength up though.”

Zexion wasn’t sure how to reply, and so he simply nodded. “I, uh…so you’re not weirded out by me sleeping here?”

Riku cocked a brow in question, looking at the other as if he’d sprouted a third head. “No, of course not. Why would I be? I would’ve done the same. It might’ve been weirder for you though because, I don’t do this on purpose, but I have a habit of cuddling anybody who sleeps around me. It’s just a thing I do because I get cold when I sleep. So, sorry if I did that. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Oh, uh, no. You’re fine.” That hurt Zexion in the smallest ways, and he found the feeling trivial. Not wanting to linger on it because, again, he didn’t understand it, he rubbed at his eyes once more, sighing. “So, that pie filling?”

“Oh, _I_ have to get it?” Riku teased, nudging Zexion with his shoulder. “Just give me a second to find my legs and I’ll get it. There’s something you should know though.”

“And what would that be?”

“Well, I managed to find a spoon.”

“And?”

“ _A_ spoon, Zexion. As in uno spoono. So there’s two ways we can go about this. You can eat half the can and I’ll eat after you because I don’t mind sharing, or we can just share the spoon. Your choice.”

Zexion shrugged, rolling onto his back as well. “I can’t transfer anything through saliva, so we can share.”

“Alright, cool.” Beside him, Riku sat up, stretching with another long yawn plaguing him. He ran a hand through his hair, undoing the gentle work Zexion had created by tucking his hair behind his ear. With that, he stood up from the mattress, and headed to the kitchen with heavy, shuffling steps.

Zexion, in turn, sat up himself, running his hands up and down his arms as he sat on the edge of the bed. He felt raw still, but he was glad Riku hadn’t heard any of what he’d said. He might not be able to face him if that wasn’t the case.

After a bit of shuffling around in the kitchen, Riku returned to flop down next to Zexion on the mattress, holding the now opened can of pie filling, and a clean spoon. “Here,” Riku handed the can over, smiling softly. “You get first bite.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because I’ve eaten in the past three days, dipshit.”

Zexion, huffing a miffed sound, took the can and the spoon, digging the silver tip of the utensil into the thick red goo packed with circular lumps. “What the hell flavor is this?”

“It’s cherry.”

“Christ, it looks terrible.” Zexion laughed, scooping a small spoonful out, and bringing it carefully to his mouth. He paused for a moment, eyeing the substance, before pulling it against his tongue. The strong tang of artificial sugar hit his taste buds almost immediately, and he felt his mouth water even after the spoon had been pulled away from his lips.

“Woah, holy shit. That’s a _lot_ of sugar.”

Riku took the spoon out of Zexion’s hand, scooping a hearty amount from the can still in the other’s grip, and brought it to his lips with a smile. After taking the bite, savoring the intense sweetness, he sighed. “And that’s just how I like my dinner. Unhealthy, and unexpired.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I really love about Zexion is that he is so helplessly confused with his own emotion, he gets frustrated with every small detail about himself. He certainly has a lot of growing to do yet, and I'm sure Riku will offer some help along the way.


	8. Humanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friendship isn't as easy as Zexion imagined it to be, but it's nowhere near as far from his grasp as he believed it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zexion, my poor sweet child, is not a lost cause. He's confused, yes, but not lost. Riku isn't just in this story to look pretty. (Low key slips in some cuteness between these two at every possible moment.)

Comfort in the company of others was not something Zexion looked upon with a fond eye, and due to the fact he had no experience to bear fondness to, it was a strange unfamiliarity when idle talking with Riku gave him a well-deserved respite. Between the two of them, the now nearly empty can of cherry goo and a spoon that left a faint metallic tang behind the aftertaste of the pie filling was passed back and forth like the steady motion of a rocking chair on a lazy afternoon in August. Zexion was finding a mild discomfit rising in his stomach from the overwhelming amount of sugar in just the small spoonful he swallowed without tasting, and offered the can to Riku with a shake of his head. The other’s teal eyes lit up at the offering, and he took it gratefully, scooping out large bites at a time without hesitation. It was the little things like this that made Zexion thankful for calm moments, especially after crawling from the ash of a scorched, fragmented memory that told of his life being nothing but chaos and destruction.

“So,” Riku began after a quiet moment, the atmosphere filled with the sound of a light wind rubbing itself against the house, and the metallic clink of the spoon hitting the edges of the can. “Can I ask something? It’s personal, I guess, and you don’t have to answer if it breaks the whole, ‘building bridges to the past’ rule we have.”

“Well, I suppose I can’t answer a question I have yet to even hear. Ask.” A tingle of regret danced along the fine blond hairs of his bare arms, and Zexion tried to ignore it by rubbing his hands, rough with decade old scars and healing scabs from his stumble over the tracks, along the marred skin.

“If my memory is serving me right, you used to have blond hair, didn’t you? You know, hair so blond that is was almost platinum blond.”

“You’re…not wrong.” Zexion nodded, thinking back on a much younger version of himself; barely three feet tall with wisps of blond hair his mother had said would make an angel cry. “I was blond.”

“Was is right. Your hair now it’s, well, it’s just that it’s—”

“Blue?” He filled in, absentmindedly bringing a hand up to squeeze at the neat little bun resting against his skull. “Yes, I am fully aware of the drastic colour change. You must know how it is though. With the cooler weather I thought I’d tone the blond down to something cool on the artist’s palette. Stay in touch with the season’s latest trends. Just because I haven’t showered in—actually, no. I’m not even going to remind myself.”

Riku made an amused sound in the back of his throat, setting the empty can and spoon to the side of the mattress both boys were seated on. “Wow, you actually have a sense of humor. I have to say, that wit is impressive, if not a bit outdated for the situation.” Riku laughed softly, and repositioned himself so he could lay back, tucking his arms beneath his head. He looked up at Zexion sitting cross legged beside him, smiling, and exposing two rows of impeccably straight teeth. “Alright, so knowing that, besides you wanting to fit in with the seasons, what happened to your poor follicles? If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

“Um,” Zexion cocked his head to the side, bringing a hand to his chin in thought. The opposite hand supported his elbow, giving him a scholarly look as his thin brows, identical in colour to his hair, drew inwards to a crease over the bridge of his nose. He didn’t mind answering the question, but he found himself unable to. Something in the back of his mind itched at him, and a strange tenderness appeared at the base of his skull and close to his spine; like a lingering soreness in the wake of something that had prodded beneath his skin. “…I don’t actually…”

Riku’s face fell from the playfulness he’d been wearing, and his eyes narrowed to a deep shade of concern, wondering if he’d crossed a line very plainly drawn between them. “That’s alright. You don’t have to answer. I know it’s a past thing, and I was just curious.”

“No, it’s not that.” Lowering his arms, Zexion rubbed at the nape of his neck, finding the tenderness was easing up as he focused less on the memories. “It’s just…something very odd happens to me whenever I try and remember why certain things are as they are. Right now, for instance, I thought I knew why my hair is this unnatural slate colour when you asked. But when I went to recover the memory for what exactly had caused it, it just…it was no longer there. And then this weird pain began on the base of my skull, almost like the feeling of an injection.”

Sitting up once more, Riku found his curiosity to be piqued. His own brows drew together, and he looked with a fond concern at Zexion. “Wait, so, when you try to remember something, it’s like your memory was just stolen away?”

“No, not necessarily stolen, per se, just…absent, perhaps? I’m having a difficult time describing it. I suppose it’s like in the moment after you wake up from a dream, and everything is so vividly clear and you can recite every detail of what it was you’d dreamt. But then, when you attempt to focus on it as you begin to really wake yourself up, it just kind of ceases to be. There are still traces of the dream, but you can’t truly remember it.”

“Huh,” Zexion sighed softly, and Riku’s teal eyes met a pair of unfocused cerulean. “Do you think it has something to do with the time you spent in the Center?”

“It could very well be. But it gets stranger than just a single missing memory. Back when I was in the Center, I could remember everything. I have a photogenic memory, and every detail of my life is as crisp to me as if I’d just witnessed it. Now that I’m out of the Center, I have vivid memory of my time before, and after, up until where I am right at this moment. The memories I have of the Center, the ones I _can_ bring forth, I’ve gathered them all from these strange, hyper realistic nightmares I have almost every time I sleep. Other than that, I can’t remember any of the time I spent in the Center, nor what happened to me. All I know is that I was a device used at the scientist’s leisure, and I met people there, but have only remembered seeing them in nightmares.”

“How long has this been happening?”

“Only a couple of years ago did the nightmares start. They were only fragments at first, but now when I’m asleep, I’m remembering whole days. I wake up and find another missing piece of the puzzle. I feel like my memory has a very large hole in it, and there’s something I shouldn’t know locked inside. I’ve been trying for ages to clear the haze, but the harder I try, the more the back of my neck aches.”

“That’s really bizarre, to just have a huge chuck of your life not there.”

Zexion shrugged, feeling the undesirable ache of distraught pooling in his chest. He sighed once more, looking to Riku with a frustrated expression. “It drives me insane. Not knowing all that I should. They did something to me, and when I find out, I’m to exact a grossly overdue revenge. Even if it’s spared my life numerous times before, being a Carrier is a curse on the world. I am a blight.”

“I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re the side effect of a blight. You know, like a byproduct. But a helpful one. You’ve gotten this far, haven’t you?”

“That may be so, but think about it, Riku. My blood is poison, and I don’t have a genetic code. My DNA shows up with a flashing red light and a glowering red plus sign. Nothing in my body truly belongs to me, it is all just housed inside of me and allowed to grow and fester. I’m a living, breathing sickness in the form of a bipedal. It’s a terrible feeling, really. To know that you were never meant to exist.”

“What makes you say that? If this infection hadn’t hit as hard as it did, your mutation wouldn’t have a need to exist. A need was created, and by way of evolution, filled with Carriers. You are only the human race trying to survive. Think about it though, you have an evolutionary advantage over me, and the rest of the poor sods trapped in those zones. You get bitten, and you don’t die or turn. That’s wicked crazy, but incredibly useful.”

“I don’t want to just be a tool for everybody to exploit.” Zexion sighed heavily, feeling a weight sink in the pit of his stomach. He let his body fall gently against the mattress, rolling over in an effort to turn his back to Riku, and curling his limbs inwards towards himself. “And I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Riku lifted a hand, his brain trying to figure out some way to offer comfort. A hand on Zexion’s shoulder would probably upset him further, but he didn’t know what to say. He had no idea what it was like being a Carrier, had no idea of the horrors that it entailed. He wanted to sympathize with Zexion, wanted to understand him, but he felt he couldn’t. The other had built up an invisible wall around himself, cowering beneath its protection as if he were too frail to conquer the harsh elements that came with facing what he refused to look in the eye.

“I’m sorry, Zexion.” Riku finally murmured after a few moments of silence had passed, chewing on his lower lip in anxiousness. He had only recently managed to get the other to open up, even just enough they could sit and have a decent conversation. He didn’t want the progress they’d made in building a trusting relationship falter so easily. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m not asking you to say anything, let alone apologize to me. Save your breath, it’s only a couple of hollow words that don’t offer much beyond an empty comfort. You simply don’t understand what I’ve lived and why I feel as I do. I’ve burned too many bridges to let myself be stopped, and it has taken me some time to convince myself I am a weapon I wield of my own volition. I don’t want you thinking of me as simply a tool to further your own conquests, whatever they may be.”

“That’s not at all what I think.” Riku sighed softly, laying himself down at a reasonable distance away from Zexion’s body. His back was framed by the dense plushness of the mattress, holding him gently as he gazed up at the faded ceiling. “I don’t plan on using you for anything. To be honest, I don’t think I really have any conquests of my own.”

“Aren’t you after those two that abandoned you?”

“Yeah, but it’s not my sole focus. I’m really more concerned with surviving long enough to impact the world a little. Sure, I could stand for Axel and Saïx’s ugly heads on a pike, or their eyes becoming a fashionable necklace to replace the locket they stole from me, but if I never see them again, that’s alright too.”

“Tell me about the locket.”

“Why? It’s a history lesson. With the tendency to be a really deep one, at that.”

Zexion grunted, shifting against the mattress enough that it drew Riku’s attention to him. Teal eyes watched as the shorter male unbound himself to lay flat on his back, head tipped over to the side to look at Riku. His hands crossed across his stomach, cerulean eyes hardened around the edges. “You said before that losing it was a comparable tragedy to my loss of my pistol. I want to know why.”

“I already told you. It was the last reminder I had of my family.”

“Surely there has to be more than that. You obviously know my life story from the Zone, and yet I know so very little about you.” Zexion stated in a flat tone, his eyes boring into Riku’s own with an intense burn that gave an insight to the fire that raged deeply within him. The sheer intensity burned through Riku enough that he had to look away, throwing his gaze to the ceiling once more as his body heaved with a sigh.

“I didn’t know my mother. But when my father wasn’t looking, I went through his things he kept in a chest stored beneath his bed that I’d seen him store things in before. I found the locket in there and snatched it, and never gave it back. He never noticed, so I’m assuming he never looked in the chest. That’s it, alright?”

“What about your father? I take it relations with him were bad.”

“He was a disgusting man I wanted no relation to. Took after my grandfather, who, unsurprisingly, was a foul human as well. You remember what the Zone was like. It wasn’t like I could run away from the bastard.” Riku turned his head and gaze to the side once more, finding Zexion’s eyes watching him with a curious intent. “What?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Come again?”

“I have a comprehensive understanding of how nearly everything in this world works. I know how the government operates, I know the entire process from bite to full infected, I can name the stage of infection by only the smell, I can shoot a rifle as well as a pistol, I’m an archer, the list goes on.”

“So, you’re multi-talented?”

Zexion shook his head. “This isn’t an exhibition of my skill set. I’m trying to understand you, Riku. I could pick up any gun you gave me, and in thirty seconds, would know how the damn thing worked inside and out. But you? I don’t know a fucking thing.”

“We’re still at some level of being strangers, Zexion. You aren’t expected to know me until we can call ourselves friends, and even then, you still won’t know me entirely.”

“Why though? Is it to protect yourself? I thought being friends indicated an understanding of somebody in a way that distinguished that person to a level of platonic intimacy. I can understand wanting to keep things secret, but that isn’t what creates a friendship. I would like to understand you, and yet, I attempt to and cannot.”

“I…” Riku let his gaze hold Zexion’s, which had become increasingly agitated. Unable to hold himself, he let a small chuckle slip past his lips, which soon opened the gate for laughter to bubble over his mouth. He turned his head to the center, bringing both hands up to his face and covering his eyes as he laughed, his entire lanky frame shaking at the force.

“What? What did I say that was funny?”

“Zexion…” He laughed, digging his palms into his eyes as he attempted to calm himself, body still twitching with small chuckles. “You’re misunderstanding.”

An agitated sigh breezed against Riku’s cheeks from the opposite side of the bed. “Yes, thank you for finally catching up.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Riku pulled his hands from his eyes, opening them, and blinking the haze away. He turned his gaze back to the other, nearly breaking into laughter again at the disgruntled pout on his mouth. “Understanding somebody doesn’t necessarily make you friends with them. It helps, but it doesn’t dictate friendship. Friendships are usually formed when people share similar interests or viewpoints. What are you trying to get at here, exactly? Are you saying you want to be friends with me?”

“I do.” Zexion said, his face twisting from irritation to confusion in a matter of seconds as the words fell from his lips. “I just really do not understand though. I sincerely thought that being in a friendship was understanding and that alone. That’s possibly why I’m frustrated.”

“Well, it’ll take a little bit of time before we’re friends, but I say we have a good start going. We’re acquaintances right now, which is more than strangers, but not quite friends.”

“So, I have certain things I need to do before you will consider me a friend?”

“Um, yeah, I suppose so. I mean, we’re really going to have to learn to trust one another before we’re full-fledged friends, but this is a good start. Sitting, well, laying here and talking candidly like this. When we first met you barely talked to me. I was afraid I’d angered you.”

“No, you hadn’t. I have a strong distrust of people until they prove their intentions. You, being a staunch protector while I was unconscious, proved your reliability. I don’t trust you one hundred percent yet, but I’m trying to move past my own ingrained suspicions to put my full trust in you.”

“You don’t have to trust me with all you have because I made sure you didn’t die, Zexion.” Riku interjected, his eyes softly holding a gaze between them, trying to assure the other he was genuine in his words. “You said it yourself, trust is earned and not given. I don’t expect you to trust me with every detail about your life right now.”

“But what if I wanted to spill all the macabre details of the hell I’ve endured?”

“Do you really?”

“No.” Zexion sighed, turning his gaze away for a moment, only to return it to Riku’s eager eyes and inquisitive look. “Perhaps, not yet. An eventual disclosure may be in the future.”

“So, leave it until then. Part of being friends with somebody is the _gradual_ telling of your life story. Know what I mean? Just letting a few things come out here and there.”

“Like I’d done before? About my memory?”

“Mmhm.” Riku nodded. “Exactly like that. That’s part of the trust in a friendship. You trusted me enough to tell me that, which I’m glad you did. It adds points to the friendship meter.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Yeah,” He paused, looking at Zexion as they younger covered a small yawn. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you not know how relationships work? I mean, how you build them and all?”

“I…hate to admit it, but unfortunately, yes. I never had friends growing up, my parents wouldn’t allow it. They told me that friends were only an incursion on my safety. They could be there one day, and then ripped away from me the next, which would leave my emotions in a disrepair that would impact how I fought. I can’t ever recall knowing what a real friend is. In the Center, for obvious reasons, friends were a nonexistent fairy tale. I’ve been alone for over a decade because nearly every other human that remains uninfected is living in those concrete cages in the Zones. You’re the first person I’ve come into contact with after all that wasted time. And while the words my parents branded into me as a child still resonate somewhere inside of me, it doesn’t relieve the fact I am very inhuman.”

“Inhuman? How so?”

“Isn’t the basic of humanity to know how to form bonds? How to speak with others? I feel enormously lacking in that respect. I was denied sociability for a long time, and it stunted my social growth almost irreparably. In the company of others, I feel so strange. It’s difficult for me to describe how so, but a majority of issue comes with the phenomenon of social cues. It’s like I haven’t quite ever had a comprehensive understanding of those. That, and emotional responses often cause me problem. I have a bit of trouble biting my tongue and controlling my temper, and I fear that among a general populous that may result in some...altercations.”

“Jesus Christ, you talk like a seventeenth century poet.” Riku chuckled, shaking his head. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass, Zexion, but you do just fine talking to me. I don’t see a whole lot of issues, but you’re doing alright. Don’t fret.”

“But, there are issues, no?”

“Eh, yeah, but they’re only minor ones. You’re in a reintegration process right now, let’s call it that. You’ve never really had a lot of social interaction, and that’s okay. You still talk just fine, and you seem to have an understanding of other people’s emotions; namely mine since it’s obviously just me and you here. Just try and relax when we’re talking. Let yourself just talk to me, and you’ll get those social cues soon. Like I said, don’t fret. I’m not at all bothered by you or how you are. My only request is that you don’t get bitten again. That was rough.”

“On both of us, I’d imagine.” Zexion added, rubbing a hand along his eyes, rimmed with the faintest tinge of pink. “I’ll do my best not to become a snack. I can’t say it was a nice experience to suffer through.”

“Are you tired, Zexion?”

“Mildly. I think my body is still warding off the infection somewhat, and today has been exciting for being the first one I’ve been conscious.”

“Go to sleep then.”

“The sky is still tinged with a bit of light. It is too early to sleep yet.”

“You know, I’m starting to miss your foul mouth.”

Zexion let his eyes slip closed languidly, but a small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck off, you absolute dickwagon.”

“There he is.” Riku teased, letting his eyes linger on Zexion’s face a moment. He began to seriously wonder what the other had been through, and while he did want to know, he liked the prospective idea of friendship between the two. Zexion was certainly a valuable asset, and if Riku held a bond with him, perhaps his value would increase. “Hey, before you conk out for the night, can I ask you one more question?”

“You just did.”

“Don’t be a smartass. Put sassy Zexion away now.”

“Alright, fine. What do you want to know?”

“Can I ask about that tattoo on your wrist?”

“Hadn’t I told you about it before? I swore I have.” Zexion cracked his eyes, looking at Riku with a blatant sleepiness lingering on the edges of his face.

“You showed it to me after I’d saved your sorry ass from your spill on the tracks, and that’s when I found out you were a Carrier.”

“Mm. Then what else is there? What are you curious about?”

“Can I see it? Your wrist I mean.”

Zexion’s eyebrows rose in curiosity, his eyes widening slightly; even as he battled the tiredness in his body. “Uh, okay. Sure.” He extended his right wrist towards Riku, watching with an inquisitive gaze as the other propped himself up on his elbows, hands opened to receive his limb as if it were a gift. “Any particular reason why?”

“I’ve never seen one before. What I remember hearing about what the ink is made of is a scary thought.” Riku, with one hand, cradled Zexion’s wrist so he didn’t have to waste energy supporting it himself, his hands soft against the skin littered with scars from bites, self-destruction, and miscellaneous surgeries. “Did this hurt?” His thumb grazed over the massive amount of scarring, feeling the dips and prominent edges of marred skin.

“Yes.” Zexion answered, feeling self-conscious about the singular part of him he couldn’t alter. That ink was embedded within his very skin, and no amount of scratching could pull it out. “It hurt immensely. I was sedated before they gave it to me, and so I could do little more than lay there and whine.”

“Wow,” Riku mused, tracing the two letters still readable with the pad of his thumb. The whole idea of tattooing identification miffed him, though intrigued him nonetheless. “How old is this?”

“Older than the bite scar on my jawline.” Zexion’s eyes flicked from Riku’s hands on his wrist, up to his face mesmerized by the faded ink and drastic deprecation of the skin surrounding it. He could barely feel Riku’s thumbs tracing over the deep scars rising and falling into valleys of bite marks and long scratches with furled edges, but each touch to the exposed lettering sent a shock through him. His wrist had never been touched gently under any circumstance, even by himself. “It’s the first scar I ever had engraved into me. I despise it. I want it out of my skin, but it’s so many layers down now, I’d never be able to cut through layer after layer of flesh in order to destroy it. Even if I had attempted that, it’ll still be in my skin, just unreadable as the other portions of identification are.”

“You’ve been bitten here too, right? On your wrist?” Riku’s thumb grazed across a distorted imprint of jagged teeth, forever imprisoned in the flesh of his arm. It made him feel self-conscious, and Zexion had to resist the urge to yank his wrist back and hold it against his body, and out of Riku’s sight.

“Yes, there too. There are few places on my body that aren’t scarred by infected teeth.”

“How’d it happen? If that’s not too prying.”

“I was grabbed from behind and bitten on the shoulder, and in defense, I cracked the barrel of my gun across an infected’s skull. I wasn’t quick enough pulling my wrist back, and was bitten there as well.”

“Did you suffer like you did the past three days?” The gentle back and forth sweeping motion of Riku's thumbs across his skin were conflicting to Zexion. On one hand, it was rousing all sorts of negative connotations about his body and creating a deep sense of rawness and exposure around Riku. On the other hand, the curious though gentle touches to his skin were almost reassuring.

“No, not even close to that. The infected that’d bitten me was fairly new, so the poison wasn’t near as potent. I was sick, but I managed.”

“What about all these white lines?” Riku’s fingers traced over the jagged, crisscrossing lines that made various x shapes; some furling at the edges with a shoddy healing, some smooth, and others roughly textured. “These look older.”

“I…” Zexion began, chewing his lip anxiously as Riku looked up to his gaze. “When I fled the Zone and the Center, I didn’t want to be traceable. For a long while, I attempted to scratch away the readability of the ink. Sometimes with my fingernails, sometimes with other things I may have found that were sharp enough to damage the skin surrounding the ink.”

“Is this prying too much?” Riku’s eyes softened greatly, and he felt concerned Zexion was obliging for the sake of budding a friendship.

“No, it’s alright. It’s so old now anyways, it should not bother me.”

“But it does.”

“…Yes. It does.”

“Can I ask what it all stands for?”

“No. That is too much. I’m sorry, I just cannot—”

“Zexion, stop. Relax. You’re allowed to say no and not need to give me a reason to defend yourself.” Riku assured, cradling his wrist in both hands, and gently rubbing both thumbs across the skin. “I’m sure there are a lot of negative memories associated with this tattoo. I was just curious about it because it’s something I’ve never been exposed it. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you in anyway.”

“You haven’t. I’m just…uncertain how I can explain it. Maybe in time I will know how, but I don’t right now. You’re an outsider to the hell I went through, and from an insider’s perspective, I’m not sure your level of understanding can be brought to mine. That isn’t an insult of your intelligence, of course, so please don’t take offense.”

“I understand, and no offense is taken. This is a deeply personal part of you. Thank you for sharing it with me, Zexion.”

Zexion felt his eyes go unnecessarily wide at Riku’s words. Had he, in fact, heard correctly? Had Riku actually _thanked_ him for sharing a part of who he was?

“What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Oh, oh God. Is there a bug on me?”

“No, it’s just that…” Zexion clenched his hand slightly, relaxed it, and looked down at the dual thumbs resting against his marred skin. “I’m confused again.”

Riku chuckled, using one hand to soothingly rub across the skin of Zexion’s forearm, before gently setting his hand against the mattress. “Don’t overthink it, Zexion.” He settled himself back down, tucking his arms beneath his head with a gentle smile lingering on his lips. “Let it be.”

“Right. Of course.” He nodded, as if Riku’s words were the most obvious in the world. Zexion drew his right arm against his chest, clasping his left hand over his wrist lightly. He held himself there, feeling his heart thump contently beneath his skin, and looking up to meet a soft gaze from Riku. “Why do you look at me like that?”

“I’m intrigued by you,” Riku stated, shrugging with a blatant nonchalance. “There are so few people left functioning on this earth, and it’s refreshing that the world is kind enough to spare a few interesting souls among the boring rabble in the Zones.”

“I don’t think some higher power had kindness in mind when I was created, but thank you for the sentiment.”

Riku smiled, rolling his eyes before returning his focus back to Zexion. “Alright, I’ve kept you up with my inane prodding long enough. Go to sleep now, Zexion. We have plans for tomorrow.”

“Plans? What plans?”

“I wanted to scout the neighborhood some more. Maybe we’ll have luck enough to find your helpless ass a weapon. You never know what people leave behind when they’re panicked. Maybe we’ll find a bow and you can show me your archery skills. I’ve never actually shot a bow.”

“Next to pistols, bows are my second in command as weaponry. They are much less complex in construction, but unless you’ve been trained or have strong arms, they’re definitely a challenge to manage. I haven’t fired a bow in about six years, but I’m sure I could pick one up and fire it as easily as if I had done it yesterday.”

“Alright, alright. Enough skill- or in my case, lack thereof –discussions. We need to rest up for tomorrow. Shut your damn eyes and go the fuck to sleep.”

“I fucking will then. Shit, you don’t have to act like an asshole about it.”

Both Riku and Zexion laughed at their antics, and the atmosphere was filled with a musical chorus of tenor and countertenor. Riku had never heard Zexion laugh, truly laugh, and he took a fondness to the soft sound as it flowed over his lips.

“I’m glad we’re acquainted, Riku.” Zexion said with a wide yawn barging its way into his speech. He sighed heavily, closing his eyes, though never releasing his arms from being held securely against his chest.

Riku smiled fondly, beginning to understand Zexion’s own personal cues he wasn’t even aware of yet. It was comforting to know he had an ally in such a strong willed force of a person, and knowing they’d laid the ground of a friendship in one night was a satisfying thought. “I am too, Zexion. Goodnight.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters are getting shorter, and I apologise, but I feel that adding to the word count would only beat a dead horse. Besides, I have more bonding in store for the next chapter. I still can't believe I've actually written eight whole chapters for anything. Soon to be nine? Perhaps.


	9. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't run away from your past. A lesson Riku and Zexion are both going to learn the hard way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a momentous writer's block when I started this chapter. It was so grossly debilitating, I wanted to cry. But I finally broke it, and managed to finish this chapter. It's got a weird little break in there because I simply wouldn't have been able to write out their entire scavenge trip without you, my wonderful readers, wanting to gouge your eyeballs out.

_“Tell me everything you know, you little shit!”_

_A large hand gripping to the back of Zexion’s neck bruised the pale flesh starved of sunlight with a hue of sickening blue and purple, sending shockwaves of pain coursing down his pointed spinal column. His lungs fought against his ribcage, which had seemingly constricted in a choking strangulation around his torso. Beneath his skin, flushed with fear and coated in a thick layer of residual yellow from previous abuse, his heart begged in an abnormally slow rhythm for oxygen. His lungs remained deflated as cold terror coursed through his body, face inches above a metal tub containing water cold enough to paralyze._

_“I’ll never tell you anything. Demyx didn’t die so I could be under your filthy hands.”_

_His fighting attitude would, quite literally, be the death of him, but Zexion had made a pact. The moment he watched Demyx’s small, frail body collapse through the tempered Plexiglas, oil was poured over the fire raging deep within his very soul. The attempt to destroy the lab had been on a successful streak, but he’d made one fatal mistake in the execution. A security breech was no matter taken lightly, and forgetting one crucial member of the defense task force had led him here; in the clutches of an extempore interrogation._

_With his face now mere centimeters from the rolling surface of the water, Zexion struggled against the cold metal rim biting into his jawline. Xigbar’s hand on his neck tightened noticeably at the mention of the sandy blond who’d been scraped from the floor of the Dangerous Ward with a shovel by a man clothed head to toe in a hazmat suit, his lifeless body taken to an undisclosed location where all the corpses of dead Carriers were dumped off for removal en masse. It was almost as if being reminded that his little pet had been felled at the hands of his twisted coworkers actually pained him, and Zexion’s fiery attitude only burned the open wound._

_“Demyx didn’t die so a shitty brat like you could kill four adults, burn down a government operated facility, and escape without retribution for his crimes. He died because he was becoming an unruly nuisance.” The smirk dripping from Xigbar’s lips sickened the pit of Zexion’s stomach, and he clenched his teeth angrily as the skin of his cheek barely grazed the surface of the water. The temperature already permeated his body, and Zexion felt panic welling slowly inside of his core. “Aegrescit medendo.”_

_“The remedy is worse than the disease.” He muttered, voice muffled by the writhing of his body against the forceful grip pinning his small frame down. That phrase was one often gracing his ears, as if attempting to remind his what a lost cause he’d set himself to chase. “Your people’s twisted motto.”_

_“My people? And who exactly are they, hm? The people trying to reign in the monstrosity you are? Those people are only doing a service to the greater good. Protecting them from your negative influence.”_

_“You can go fuck yourself. Argh—” Zexion could almost taste the metallic tang of the tub as he was pressed down into the surface of the water, submerging the first bit of skin on his face. His cheek seemed seize against the water now lapping at him like a starved animal, and he struggled feebly against the hold on his neck. “Alea iacta est, you worthless fuck.”_

_“And so ‘the die has been cast,’ eh? So be it.”_

_Zexion barely had time to hold his breath before the force on his body increased tenfold, forcing the entirely of his head and neck below the water’s freezing surface. Instantly, his body forced itself into survival mode, attempting to pull out from the shock. Air bubbles expanded from his mouth, silent screams swallowed by the density of the water. His panic blossomed into an extravagant fireworks display just beneath his sternum, and a panicked breath drawn in filled the empty space in his lungs. His legs flailed senselessly behind him, seemingly out of touch with his brain firing signal after signal to calm down._

_The relentless burning inside of his chest was immediate, a warning sign something was terribly wrong. The sheer iciness of the water froze his rationale, making comprehensive thought a difficult task. His only focus was to force his mouth from below the surface of the water, and to expel the liquid floating around his lungs. Zexion writhed, chest burning, lingering air bubbles clouding his hazed vision as he fought to redeem himself._

_He wanted so desperately to breathe, and the seconds dragged themselves across his vison in angry displays that mocked his struggle. The water gnashed its fangs across his skin, dragging icy talons through every pocket in his lungs. Everything was a haze of fear and agony, and Zexion felt pathetically weak having been shocked so easily. He liked to think of himself having full control over his reactions, but this, the physiology of the matter, was beyond his conscious control._

_The grip on his neck yanked his head up from below the water’s surface without warning, and the slate locks matted around his skin dripped thick droplets of icy water down his neck, and soaking into the thin fabric of his clothes. Water spilled messily over his lips, dripping with a mixture of saliva over the light blue tinging as he coughed in violent heaves to his chest. The burning never cooled, it only seemed to increase as his body expelled the unwanted guest taking residence in his lungs, and he shook with fear._

_“Are you ready to talk yet? Because I could do this all damn day.”_

_“No…” Zexion managed between choked gasps for air, water dripping from his mouth and hair in the same fluid panic. “You can…eat shit you…monster…”_

_“Oh, how vicious. You know, a declawed cat shouldn’t start quarrels with a lion.” Xigbar’s thick fingers squeezed around Zexion’s petit neck, his mouth curling into a snarl that passed itself off for a look of twisted amusement. “You’ll talk. Maybe not this second, but soon.”_

_“Stop—!”_

_Water flooded his mouth, eyes, and nose once more; shocking his body with the paralysis of unforgiving cold._

“Stop! Stop! _Stop!_ ” Zexion was barely aware of his chest rising and falling with anguished cries, his nightmarish dreams leaking from the combined force of his lower, higher, and middle brain into his reality. The flashbacks were becoming increasingly malevolent lately, plaguing him with poignant reminders of what he’d forgotten. The time spent at the Center haunted him endlessly; if he wasn’t stewing over the lost memory, he was screaming in terror once it’d been rediscovered.

A pair of strong hands grasped his shoulders, and the shock of contact drew his clenched eyelids back, forcing his hazed consciousness to focus on the reality his unconscious brain had detached him from to cultivate a seed of memory from behind the blacked out uncertainty of the past. His eyes, unfocused and glazed over in an alcoholic’s gaze, flicked in a weak panic across his faintly familiar surroundings. His brain barely acknowledged the details, but the tension in his body was starting the morning off with a feeling of nauseated displeasure. The ghosts of past abuses ran their icy fingertips along his temples and down his spine, chilling him with an uncomfortable realization of the torture he’d endured as a child.

“Zexion. Zexion, hey, look at me. It’s alright. Hey, hey, look at me.” Riku’s voice cut through the haze of shock like a hot knife through butter, and Zexion’s tired eyes looked to meet the concern written plainly across the other’s face. His teal eyes narrowed with an unsure cautiousness, perhaps fearing the unpredictability of the younger’s actions as he attempted to pull himself from the clutches of the nightmare. The glaze coating a pair of cerulean eyes lessened somewhat, and he blinked twice to bring himself forth. “Hey, there you are. Good morning. You alright?”

“Y-yeah…” Zexion muttered, wanting to rub away the haze lingering across his field of vision. Instead, he brushed Riku’s hands from his shoulders, sitting up slowly as his brain recounted all that he’d dreamt about. It was fresh in his mind, like an open wound, and it pained the back of his neck just minutely enough to notice it. “Fuck.”

“Bad dream?” Riku asked, sitting back against the hardwood floor as he looked on while Zexion ground his palms into his eyes. The younger of the two nodded, a heavy sigh draped over his lips.

“It was something else…a memory from the Center. Christ almighty, maybe it is better I’ve forgotten.” Zexion’s voice cracked as his vocal chords warmed up to the use after a few hours of rest. He cleared his throat from the thick haze of sleep, tongue flicking out to wet his dry lips.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Riku asked, unmoving from his spot on the floor. Zexion drew his hands away from his eyes, opting to roll his neck to ease the tension and ache out.

“Not even a little bit.” He murmured, running a calloused hand along the back of his neck where the minute pain began to subside. “Do we have any water? I feel like dehydrated death.”

“Unfortunately no. There are, however, some canned fruits that have juice in them. You could drink that, I suppose.”

“Eugh.”

“Yeah, fruit syrup isn’t the most appealing first thing in the morning.” Riku’s dry laugh brought a bit of playfulness to the atmosphere, but not quite enough to shake Zexion from the lingering remnants of the memory. Had he really been forced under ice cold water for the sake of a scientist getting information from him? Did those people have no decency, no humanity? “Hey, so, before you go and get lost in your memories, how do you feel?”

“Like shit.”

“I meant in terms of strength. Are you capable enough to do a bit of walking?”

Zexion looked down the length of his body, stretching his legs just a bit in front of himself by extending his feet away from his body; groaning ever so slightly when his ankles gave a mild protest. “I’m fine to walk.”

“Are you positive? I can let you rest here if you’re not up to it quite yet.”

“Getting out of here and actually using my legs for their intended purpose would do me some good. I think I need some air anyways.”

“Alright, as long as you’re sure. I just don’t want you overdoing it. You still have a gnarly wound on your neck. I took the bandage off of it because the dried blood was starting to force the fabric to heal into the wound itself. Letting it go like that would only force the wound open again and make the healing time a lot longer than it needs to be.”

“Yeah.” Zexion answered, sighing once again. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” Riku nodded before pulling himself from the floor. He stretched his arms overhead, earning a few satisfying pops from various bones and joints. “The sun’s up, and we should go before it starts heating up. I want to go explore a little cropping of houses that branch off of this street. There’s quite a few two story places and sheds, city-living things like that, and it looks promising for supplies.”

“You said your gun was out of ammunition, yes?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, it is.”

“Are there a lot of infected around here?”

“I haven’t seen any, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t. There are certainly other ways to take those bastards down, you know.”

“I am aware.” Zexion nodded, sliding to the edge of the mattress he’d somehow rolled to the center of while he rekindled the flame that linked his motivation to his broken past in a nightmare, and he only hoped he hadn’t crowded Riku overnight. “And I’m not afraid to punch one of those undead assholes. I can’t get infected, and a solid right hook to the jaw would certainly do some damage.”

“Don’t make it your goal to get bitten again though.” Riku muttered as he headed towards the kitchen, presumably to open a can of food, or pick through the supply piles to prepare for their little ‘shopping’ trip. “Did you want to eat now, or save it for when we come back?”

“I’m not particularly hungry at the moment, and we’ll both probably work up an appetite if we scavenge for a few hours.” Zexion said with a yawn, accompanied by a satisfied groan as he stretched the lingering hold of sleep out from his body. He stood from the mattress, rubbing at his eyes, and wondering why he couldn’t wake up feeling rested at least once in his miserable life. “May as well save it for later.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Riku shuffled around the kitchen a bit until the distinctive sound of a backpack being zipped up and donned filled the hollow silence in the house. “Are you able to walk now? We can relax around here for the time being if you’re not awake yet.”

“I am plenty awake. You don’t have to cater to me, I am not a child.” Zexion replied in a monotonous tone, pulling himself from the mattress and to his full height. He didn’t bother with his hair, it felt to be in about the same disarray as when he’d gone to sleep, and since the thick slate locks were still held back, it wasn’t worth the pain of yanking the rubber band out. “Are you ready?”

“Uh, yeah.” Riku gave a final one over to himself, and gave a sure nod at Zexion as he walked the short distance from the kitchen to the front door, hidden behind the enclave. “Let me check outside first, just in case.”

While Zexion made his way across the hardwood floor, the door gave a small squeak of protest as Riku cracked it open a couple of inches, peering out cautiously. He remained there for a few beats, and when the coast was confirmed clear, opened the door all the way for the younger’s passage. “All clear.” He nodded, stepping through the doorway. “Make sure to close the door behind you. Wouldn’t want to come home to any unwanted guests.”

“On it.” The air outside was unseasonably cool this morning, and Zexion found himself shivering lightly as he pulled the door shut with a sure click. He turned to Riku, squinting against the fierce morning sun as his breath left his lips in a visible plume of white smoke. “What month are we in right now?”

“It could be September, or it could just be cold for May. I couldn’t tell you, honestly.” Riku adjusted the backpack strap before bringing a hand up to shield his eyes, gauging where to head out from. “But we should head that-a-way, down that little side street there. That’s where I hadn’t gone yet. It still looks promising.”

“After you.”

“Just stay on my heels, alright? I haven’t been to this part of the neighborhood yet, and who knows what’s waiting over there.” Riku took a few uncertain, shuffling steps, looking back to Zexion who gave a little wave to usher him forward. He nodded, taking a normal stride, and Zexion followed like clockwork.

Thick grasses brushed against their boots and ankles of their pants, tugging gently at the shoelaces as they crossed across a vast, unkempt lawn that blurred the property lines that remained unimportant with no owner to claim them. The sidewalk out front of the house melted seamlessly into a larger concrete footpath, which lead to a high curb that used to serve as a dividing line between the foot traffic from the vehicular traffic. Blacktop, which had once been populous with tires and exhaust, lay barren and unattended, small green sprouts creating cracks in the uneven surface.

Riku’s boots made a soft sound as he stepped down from the curb, Zexion at his heels. They trekked across the jagged surface of what was once a well-kept road, boots scuffing across the cracks as they headed for a side street in condition no worse than the decrepit state of any surrounding it. Loose stone and gravel crunched beneath their footsteps, and a light morning breeze picked up through the still air. Zexion found the breeze lapping against the back of his exposed neck to be bothersome, and he grabbed the collar of his bomber, yanking it up as far as he could.

Birds began to chirp softly among the leaves rustling like an inhuman laughter against the ticklish winds, and the atmosphere wasn’t so much still as it was serene. Zexion was beginning to grow accustomed to the calmness, and the thought was worrisome to his sensibility. He wasn’t so dull to assume that his world of chaos and destruction was plunged into a state of perpetual calm, rather, he’d only begun to fret the moment that the mirage of serenity was to be shattered like glass, and once more he’d be fighting like hell to stay alive.

Zexion nudged a thick chunk of asphalt out of his footpath with the toe of his boot, and sighed deeply. He’d fallen slightly behind Riku, his steps taking on a stiff lethargy. His body seemed less than thrilled to be functioning as a normal human, and he attempted to brush it off as he trudged on.

“Zexion?”

“Hm?”

The sound of Riku’s footsteps echoing just ahead of him stopped, and Zexion lifted his head to meet the other’s face; concern drawing his brows together. “Are you okay? You’re unusually quiet and very…off edge.”

“I, uh…” He was off his game. Zexion had barely been doing his sweep for anything that wanted to tear the flesh from his bones, letting the task fall to Riku entirely. That was highly uncharacteristic of him, and after the wound on his neck throbbed against the breeze biting the naked skin, he internally chastised himself for carelessness. “Yeah, sorry.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t mean it like that.” Zexion caught up to Riku, looking up at him with tired eyes; red rimmed and hazed by purple half-moons stamped like a seal of exhaustion on his face. “I’m just worried.”

“You needn’t worry about me. Let’s just find some supplies, alright?”

“Alright. There’s a one story house with a shed dead ahead of us. I’ll take the house if you take the shed.”

“I’ll take the house. The shed seems to have more I’d miss while looking through. You can meet me inside when you’re finished.”

“Deal. C’mon.” Riku waved a hand, and Zexion was once more tailing him. He reminded himself to be alert, finding an emphasis on the importance of the task at hand. He was about to dive headlong into uncharted waters, and letting his trivial concerns with the nightmares that ate away at his grey matter in a cliché parasitism distract him could be the difference between life and death.

Without question, Zexion followed behind Riku, his tired eyes scanning every corner where a shadow could move unexpectedly. The nakedness of not having his pistol resting in his holster was distracting at the very least, and it put a queer uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. He’d had that pistol longer than he cared to remember, and in one instant, the damn thing had been ripped away from him before his brain could even catch up to what had happened. He wanted to keep a cold resentment buried in his heart and aimed at Riku for not grabbing the forgotten weaponry, but the man had preserved his life for three days when he very easily could have dumped his writhing body off and bailed. It seemed inappropriate to harbor any negativity for Riku, he’d done nothing but good things that furthered both of their survival. If anything, Zexion was more grateful to him than he’d likely admit aloud.

“So, I was thinking,” Riku began in a quiet tone, his words catching Zexion’s attention as if he’d cast a fishing lure into the hollowness of his thoughts, reeling him from below the turbulent surface. “Maybe if we found a well-fortified house down one of these streets, we could move from house to house until you get your strength back and we decide to leave this town.”

Their boots swished through long grasses in an unkempt plot of grass framing the front stoop of a one story house seeming to lean towards one side, sighing against the weight of neglect from the prolonged absence of an owner. Zexion let his eyes wander in a curious gaze over the peeling siding, the roof cracking from abuse of the elements, the windows all broken from days where looting was a necessity for survival. It all seemed like a distant memory now, the idea that people had once made a life and possibly a family here. Now, it was nothing but barren wasteland.

“What’re you thinking, Zexion? You’re too quiet.”

“I’m not thinking of anything in particular. Your idea is a good one, and I have no qualms.” He answered, stopping short as they encroached on the house. Riku flicked his eyes towards the shed, scanning the area for movement. “I’m just taking things in, that’s all. Go and see what you can find in that shed. I’ll scout the inside of the house.”

“Be very careful in there, alright? Come find me if anything happens.” Zexion nodded without sparing Riku even a glance, and he grunted when a firm hand held him back from making his way to the front door. With a mild irritation, he looked to Riku, noticing the way his teal eyes narrowed slightly. “Try and focus, please.”

“I’m on top of it.” Zexion pulled his arm away, sighing. He nodded affirmatively at Riku, hoping he’d loosen up with his concern. He’d spent years convincing himself he didn’t need somebody fussing over him, and he intended to keep things that way. “Don’t worry.”

That being left between them, Zexion took careful steps up the concrete path to the front door. The wooden porch leading up to the door shuddered beneath his weight, as if sighing pleasantly at the feeling of human contact once again. The paint on the door, once a pristine and welcoming white, had dulled to a chipped yellow; faded beneath the relentless hand of aged neglect. The door handle, presumably chrome in its heyday, had rusted to an oxidized copper that bore the timeframe of just how long these houses had remained here; stagnant, and hollow as the stomachs of those supposedly fortunate souls still weathering this blight.

Zexion crept up the wood, whining with aching squeals beneath his steps, and peered in through one of the shattered windows. The inside of the house was fairly dark, even with the unbridled morning sun creeping in over the shattered glass panes. Shadowed objects loomed menacingly in dark corners, but the stillness seemed strangely homey. Nothing inherently dangerous seemed to take residence in the house, and Zexion assured himself everything was as it should be.

Stepping away from the window, he made a grab for the door handle, which bit into the rough flesh of his palm where the rusted edges contacted his skin. Brushing off the minor annoyance, Zexion attempted to turn the handle, only to find it stuck and heavily resistant. “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.” He sighed, voice low, but audibly annoyed. “Who goes to the trouble to lock a door in an apocalypse? Shit.”

Zexion pulled away from the door, taking a few steps back and sighing. The window beside the door wasn’t broken enough he could slip through, and he didn’t particularly want to risk causing a racket by shattering the glass. The house had other windows, and the best bet to find a way in resided there.

Making his way off of the porch, Zexion crept along the right side of the house, looking up at the widows just out of his reach. There were three plastered into the side of the house, all of them broken or cracked, but in the same condition as the front window. He’d have to risk noise attempting to break in, and the gain may outweigh the cost, but in this world, caution had to take precedence over all if you wanted to ensure your own survival another hour.

Creeping silently, save for the light sounds of his boots through unattended grasses, Zexion made his way to the back of the house; an unruly yard littered with what appeared to be a children’s playhouse. Thick greenery overtook the plastic house, engulfing it in moss and vines. Rusted bikes lay stagnant along the side of the house, the ground surrounding littered with plastic shovels and stuffed things; their cloth rotted through by rain, age, and perhaps small animals.

The back of the house, while offering some insight to the former residents, offered no way in, and Zexion began to feel himself growing with agitation. He began to toy with the idea of simply skipping this place, but he felt inclined to get inside for some unknown reason. Something inside of the house beckoned to him, and he was inquisitive enough to chase that beckoning call.

Appearing around the left side of the house, Zexion noticed the faint shuffling sounds from the shed angled off to the side. He figured Riku was doing what he did best, and finding some things he, himself, may have overlooked in the search for supplies.

Zexion focused his gaze on three windows bearing identical size, shape, and pattern to those on the opposite side, noticing how one of the windows seemed to be thoroughly shattered. Small bits of glass still clung to the frame like teeth hesitant to leave their roots in rotten gums, but those could be easily avoided with careful maneuvering. Zexion’s body was small and lithe enough that he could very easily squeeze through the opening, but his height offered an unavoidable challenge. There wasn’t anything around he could easily climb on to reach the window sill and pull himself in, but that didn’t mean the problem couldn’t be solved. If Zexion was good at anything, he was enormously skilled at being resourceful, and a little creativity and teamwork would do him well.

Walking to the shed, Zexion peered through the open door, watching as Riku sifted through a cardboard box aged with yellow-brown stains towards the bottom corners. “Hey,” he called, having to hold back a chuckle as Riku jumped slightly, the contents of the box rattling beneath his searching hands. “I need your help. Can you come here a second?”

“Yeah, sure. What’s up?” Riku, getting his bearings back, set the box aside, coming into the sunlight as he brushed a cobweb from his face. “Ugh, fucking—goddammit, fucking gross spider shit.”

Zexion couldn’t resist chuckling softly, leading Riku to the side of the house where the window gaped like a black mouth waiting for food to enter. He pointed to the broken pane, guiding Riku’s gaze to his goal. “See that? The front door is locked and rusted shut, and the other windows I can’t get into unless I shatter the glass. We aren’t exactly armed for a fight, and in order to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, I need to get into that window. Problem being, I can’t reach it on my own.”

“Do you want me to pick you up and lift you into it?”

“No, I just need a boost. I’ll show you how to do it. Here, stand with your back against the wall. Good, like that. Now, squat down just a bit, and cup your hands above your right, but my left, knee. Excellent. Now, I’m going to put my foot in your hands, which act as a foothold, and a hand on your shoulder. I need you to just give me a little push, and I can reach it.”

Riku nodded as he held the position steadily, and Zexion was suddenly grateful for such a willing partner in all this mess. If anything, they made a good team, even if there was a hazy trust blurring the definite lines of their relationship.

Bracing a hand against Riku’s shoulder, Zexion put one foot into the hold of the other’s hands, giving him a nod when he controlled his balance. “Okay, boost me up, tall-ass.”

Riku laughed at the name, using the strength in his legs to force Zexion’s body up. The bit of momentum, that small push, was enough to allow him to reach the window pane with ease. Zexion grasped the sill, using what strength he had in his upper body to pull himself up. His legs worked against the outside of the house, pushing his lower body through the opening until he was kneeling inside the house. Pulling himself from his knees, Zexion turned back to look down at Riku, giving him a thumbs up. The other nodded understandingly, and wiped his hand across the leg of his pants before departing to continue his search in the shed.

Now inside of the house, Zexion began to take in his surroundings. The layout was similar to that of the house he and Riku had holed up in; exhibiting an open floor plan with only a few doors. The kitchen looked ransacked, and the collapsed counters and cabinets were not at all promising. Rather than waste his effort sifting through the rubble right away, he opted to test his luck on one of the doors looming against the hallway.

There were two oak doors that stood like body guards to what they held within, and Zexion caught sight of a white square taped to the rotten oak of the furthest door. Walking carefully across a stained green carpet that reeked of sour age and stale urine, Zexion noticed the weathered tape keeping the faded paper pressed against the door. Curiously, he grabbed for the paper, finding the tape holding it whining with relief to no longer be tasked with keeping the white square in place.

Turning the paper over in his hands, Zexion noticed the hasty folding of the paper, as if somebody had had no extra time to waste on careful neatness. On the side that had been pressed against the door, Zexion noticed faint ink markings, and brought the worn ink to his face; making out something having to do with a mother’s plea.

“A mother’s plea..? A plea for what?” Zexion turned the note over in his hands, examining its yellowing sides before finally unfolding the hasty bends. The paper was stiff, though intact, and Zexion wondered how long this note had been sitting here, waiting for somebody to come along and find it.

Smoothing out the deep wrinkles as best he could, Zexion felt his eyes widen at the long paragraph written across the paper’s surface, and still somehow perfectly preserved and readable.

 _To Whom May Find This Note,_ it read, the words shakily written as if penned by an unsteady hand. _Beyond this door is my daughter, Victoria. She came home early from school after the evac and her father was there. He worked in the city, where the hospital had been overflowing with those…things. He was attacked on the way home, but he wanted to warn his family. He turned before he could. Victoria, my sweet and innocent little girl, came home first before I had a chance to reach her. My husband lunged and attacked her. I came home, and he was chewing on her neck as if he was drinking her blood. I killed him, and with the blood of the man I loved on my hands, killed my sweet Victoria too. My husband, I pushed out of the window. I didn’t want him in the house, he was already one of those things and I don’t want that disease spreading to this home of love more than it has alrady. Victoria, I picked her lifeless body from the ground, and set her in her bedroom among all the things she loved. I don’t know if corpses can reanimate after they’re sickened. I hope not. I don’t want my little girl to be one of those things. Whoever finds this note, please, I beg you. If my little girl is reawakened please kill her. She isn’t my little Victora any longer, and you needn’t show her mercy. Her soul is with her father’s where it cannot be touched by this sickness. As for myself, you can find my body in Victoria’s old playhouse. I can’t stand the thought of leaving all that I love, the only things in my life that truly meant anything to me. I won’t go when the Feds come through and force an evacuation. As a mother and a wife, I can’t bear the thought to go on without my family accompanying me. I will be long dead before anybody finds this, I am sure. But soon, the three of our souls will align, and I can love my husband and protect my sweet daughter once more._

_Rest in Peace on May 8 th, 2014:_

_Victoria Rose Trevena – age 16_  
_Emile Marcus Trevena – age 34_  
 _and Maryanne Amy Trevena – age 32_

_Forgive me for bringing you into this world so young, Victoria. Your father and I had made a mistake as children, and all I wanted to do was give you the life I never had. I hope whoever finds this note knows of the unconditional love I held for both my husband and child, to the very end._

Zexion clenched his hand and teeth against the fire flaring up hotly inside of his chest as the words before him ate away at his sensitivities to the destruction of a family life. Few things in this world triggered the ignition of the flame to his broken past than knowing the government had obliterated the happy lives of innocent people who didn’t deserve the unholy hell forced down their throats without warning. There was no longer such a thing as fairness, no long sought after American dream with a wife, house, kids, and dog gallivanting around the manicured backyard when the government devalued the lives of innocent children who’d never get to experience the coming-of-age traditions they deserved. Behind her bedroom door, a sixteen year old’s corpse lay, decomposing, as her birthday came and went without her liveliness. There was no family who could even remember her, and in the end, the only thing that amounted to her existence actually having existed was a letter written by her long-dead mother who’d rather end her own life than go on without the love of a husband and child.

Perhaps the reason he’d found himself so painfully heated at the idea lingered in his own hellish experiences. His mother was only fourteen when he was born, his father barely approaching seventeen, and they’d made a mistake one night after a fire in their Zone killed their families. Neither wanted to cry, only to drown the pain of loss, and feel the pleasure of anonymous sex with a stranger who understood what loss meant. In the end, they’d gone from miserable strangers, to unprepared teenagers, to parents who’d fallen in love with not only each other, but to the life they’d built in just nine short months. Teenage parents had done nothing but try to give their children they life they deserved, but the government’s bastardizations of what life should have been killed them in the end.

But it wasn’t just teenage parents, it was all parents. Old and young alike, nobody cared. Most succumbed to the infection before they’d ever had a chance to say goodbye, and it was rare occurrence in itself when anybody actually had time to say goodbye. Families were torn apart faster than anybody could account for, and soon, when all worldly possessions were requited to the evacuations, family became the only thing you really fought for.

Clutching the note in his hand, Zexion felt his breath rattle through his lungs, quaking his ribcage like water rushing into a rusty pipe. He knew, with all he could recount about the processes of infection, that lying beyond that oak door would be nothing but decaying bones. Victoria, who should be celebrating her twenty fourth birthday, would be trapped at sixteen in her skeletal remains. Her human form would be lost to the natural stages of human decomposition, and the only person on Earth who now knew of her life before she passed, was Zexion.

With a breathy sigh, he put a hand on the handle, twisting slightly, and pushing the door open with a loud squeak. The room was rank with the heavy scent of decaying life, and it twisted Zexion’s stomach to an impossible tangle of disgust and remorse. The room was a sea of pink, faded miserably to a dying, dusty rose. Little was left standing in here, and it appeared, even with the note on the door, the place had been ransacked while everybody fought so hard to further themselves. Zexion was arguably no better, but he had entered this room with a sense of respect, not on a bounty hunt for supplies.

His predictions, however, had proved to be true. Laying amidst a tangle of blankets, faded with age and stained with blood and rotten viscera, was a skeletal figure, still dressed in the tattered remains of her clothing. Her bones were positioned in a way that appeared she’d been left holding something, but whatever it was, had been missing a long time. Zexion shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger with the free hand not still holding the note. This wasn’t at all how he’d imagined his day to pan out, and after the nightmare this morning, he wasn’t emotionally intact to handle something this high caliber in the trauma department.

“I’m so sorry.” He muttered, voice cracking sharply as hot tears welled up threateningly behind his clenched eyelids. “This should never have happened. Neither of us should have lost our parents, and you shouldn’t be a pile of bones nobody cares for. Fuck’s sake, nobody can even manage a proper burial. You didn’t deserve this, you family didn’t deserve this. I am so, so sorry.”

Zexion wanted to run, to jump from the window and flee. The wind racing through his locks, heart hammering below the surface, awareness centered only on the fire in his lungs and protesting burn coursing through his veins. He wanted to get away from these bones, and from the house where so many vile atrocities had occurred. He wanted to flee from the aching pain in his chest, the hot tears that threatened to spill his weakness, the thrumming of his heart in his ears.

It wasn’t the situation that Victoria and her family had endured that had suddenly shattered his fragile shell. It was the realization that no matter where he went on this godforsaken Earth, he simply couldn’t escape his own haunting past. Everywhere he went, the looming agony of loss draped its gnarled fingers around his frail body, gripping him and wringing out every last bit of strength until he was a quivering heap of limbs surrounding a heart too heavy to stand on his own two feet with. Zexion was an aching, broken soul, and he wanted so desperately to heal; to stay strong and fight until his dying breath. But, when his life was a continuous string of poignant reminders, like the bones of a girl who had died anonymously like all the other children who were lost, healing was a steadily impossible task.

Taking a deep breath that caught mercilessly on the lump in his throat, Zexion lowered his hand and opened his eyes. He refolded the note, tucking it into the pocket of his cargos just below his gun holster for safe keeping. Knowing the names of an entire family was suddenly something he felt obligated to protect, to keep them alive when they’d been gone for so long. His parents had told himbefore they died, that in order to keep them alive, he’d simply have to remember them. Zexion couldn’t even begin to think what these people would have looked like, but he gave them a place in his mind alongside his parents. There, he could easily keep them all alive while he did the same for himself.

Deciding this house wasn’t one he wished to exploit whatever little it had to give, Zexion left Victoria’s room; closing her door with a sound click. He didn’t bother with the opposite room, nor filtering through the rubble of the kitchen, and headed back to the window he’d come through.

It was far easier to exit the house than it was to enter, and he slid past the glass fragments seamlessly. When the soles of his boots hit the soft Earth with a muted sound, Riku came from the shed, smiling as he patted the backpack resting on his body.

“I found a box of matches, some lighter fluid, and an old ace bandage. Handy stuff.”

Zexion nodded solemnly, running a hand across the back of his neck. He wasn’t in the best of moods to begin with, but now, he was feeling the weight of the world force his unwilling body beneath the layers of soft earth. “That’s good. We’ll definitely find some use for those things.” He murmured, feeling himself frowning, but not able to pull his mouth up to a state of neutrality.

“What about you?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head, suddenly feeling awareness to the note in his pocket. It weighed down on him, enough to make him subconsciously yank up his cargos.

“Oh, well, maybe I should have a look—”

“No!” His answer was too quick, too forceful. He chewed anxiously on his lower lip, sighing heavily. “No. I can promise you that whatever you think you might find in that house, you won’t. Come on, let’s just search the next place, alright?”

Before Riku had a chance to argue, Zexion was already making his way to the next house, his footsteps heavy beneath the combined weight of his heart and troubled mind.        

 

****

The sun was dipping below the horizon and the temperature had been on a steady decline by the time Riku had decided to call it quits. With their combined efforts, in around ten hours, they’d managed to scavenge through eighteen houses and ten sheds; finding enough food and miscellaneous supplies to hold them out for another two weeks, at the very least.

Zexion hadn’t been very talkative for about two hours after searching through the first house, sparing only a few words here and there. It bothered Riku in a way he understood as unadulterated compassion, but with the unwillingness the other showed towards talking, he figured he could ask about it later.

After the initial two hours of sparse words, Zexion began to hold more normal conversations that were lackluster, but still sociable enough to put a little relief back into Riku’s system. Something in that house had set him off, but Riku wasn’t going to pry. Zexion had come around on all his own, and he gave it time to let him continue to do just that. That time, within the next four hours, soon broke the funk the other was in, and things were, in a sense, normal again. They’d continued on their search with no problems, and managed to come away with more than expected.

After the search was called off, and the two were hoofing it back to their safehouse, Zexion had fallen once more into a strange pattern of silence and brooding. His face felt into a deep frown, brows drawing together, and his hands shoved into the pockets of his cargos. Riku would often glace back at him, a concerned look settling onto his features as he noticed the disgruntled look soon accompany a lessened pace. It wasn’t long until Zexion was falling behind Riku’s strides, and the other paused in his trek to watch Zexion almost toddle along.

“Zexion.”

“Mhm?" The other lifted his head from frowning at his feet, eyes widening at the gap between their bodies. “Shit.”

Riku couldn’t help himself, and laughed shortly as Zexion attempted to quicken his pace, a slew of curses spilling from his lips. A single sweat droplet beaded up and playfully glided down his temple, to which Zexion quickly wiped away with the back of his hand. A red tinge began to settle into his face, beginning over the bridge of his nose, and blooming outwards in a reaching groan as his cheeks were soon stained with a quickly deepening red. Riku noticed the paleness of his lips as his chest rose and fell heavily with the labored breaths, poorly hidden, passing over them as Zexion’s oxygen starved lungs begged for mercy.

“You overdid it today.”

“I…did not.” Zexion said between a deep swallow of air, straightening his back as if to shrug off a heavy weight. He groaned with a short exhale, the next breath whistling over his chapped lips.

“You’re going to have a stroke. Let’s take a break, okay? Sit down for a second, catch your breath.”

“I haven’t lost it.” Zexion sighed, waving a hand to usher Riku on. “We need to move before the sun sets.”

Riku wanted to argue his point, but Zexion wasn’t wrong. The sun was dipping quickly below the horizon, and while they hadn’t found another gun or any ammo, they were both equipped with some pretty solid knives. Even so, fighting hand to hand with infected in pitch darkness was a terrible risk neither wanted to take, and so he kept quiet and simply nodded. Gazing worriedly at Zexion once more, Riku resumed his trek, wondering if this would send the other back to a weakened state where he’d fall under again.

They continued towards their safehouse in a dull silence, but it wasn’t long until Zexion found himself falling behind as he attempted to brave a throbbing ache welling up inside of his body. His deep swallows of air seemed to do little for him now, and the further away Riku got, the more likely he found himself to admit defeat.

Zexion’s lungs burned with a vengeful fury inside his chest with each gasping swallow of air, his body making a direct point to protest any and all movement he was forcing himself to execute in a sorry attempt to keep up with the other’s lengthy strides. The sidewalk heading back seemed like a perilous uphill, and his muscles had given up on supporting his weight with little quivers blooming into full-on shaking. Zexion wanted to call out to Riku, but he worried not forcing his lungs to expand would cause a negative pressure buildup in his chest, and scatter his being across the sidewalk like appetizers for the undead. The thought was gruesome, but the feeling of suffocating above water was worse.

Feeling himself weakened, Zexion stopped walking altogether, and braced his hands against his bony knees while he tried in futility to catch his breath. A thick string of drool pooled against his swollen lower lip, rising up with his inhale and finding its way over the fleshy barrier on his exhale. Disgusted, Zexion wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, groaning softly. The wound on his neck pulsed with vivacious energy, reminding him why he felt as he did. The reminder was an unnecessary annoyance, and he cocked his head to the side, hoping to cut some of the blood flow off to lessen the throbbing.

“We’re just about there, just a little further now. Are you o—Zexion!” Riku’s voice called in an echoing concern, the sounds of his heavy footsteps smacking against the concrete mimicking the rhythm of Zexion’s heart. “Shit, you’re going to collapse. I knew I should’ve made you rest before.”

Zexion raised his eyes to find Riku sprinting back towards him, stopping dead in front of his winded form. “M’fine…” He managed between heavy breaths, Riku’s strong hands finding their way to hold his shoulders gently.

“Let me carry you.”

“Wha—?”

“I’m serious. We’re not that far from the house, and you weigh next to nothing. If I could sprint with your deadweight body in my arms, I’m sure I can carry you now. Here,” Riku removed the backpack, dropping it to the ground as he bent down. “Put the backpack on, and hop on my back.”

“I’m alright, I just need—”

“—To get your skinny ass on my back. Don’t argue with me. You overdid it, and I won’t have you fall into another three days of unconsciousness when your body needs to heal itself again.”

Riku had a point, and Zexion knew he was just being pigheaded. He had most definitely overdone it today, he’d overdone it four hours ago when he’d needed to remove himself to quietly vomit blood behind a shrub where he was certain nobody, namely Riku, would see. Zexion, after seeing what he had this morning, felt this pitiful obligation to somehow prove himself, to prove his strength, and to make sure this world knew it could break him, but it couldn’t kill him. With the way he was feeling now, he almost wanted to refute that claim, and replace it with the notion he was still human; no matter how many times he’d label himself an inhuman monstrosity.

“Fine.” He finally admitted his own defeat, mostly in part to the fact that Riku’s hands previously holding firmly against his shaking shoulders was one of the only reasons he wasn’t a human puddle quivering against the grating sidewalk. Weakly, Zexion picked up the backpack and slid it onto his back, startled at the sheer weight of its contents. His balance seemed to disagree with the sudden weight plaguing him, but he forced himself to stay upright.

“Alright, here, on my back. I’ve got you.” Riku knelt down far enough Zexion worried his knees would give from the height balanced on them, but didn’t argue. He braced his thighs against both sides of Riku’s thin, though muscular torso, wrapping his arms around the other’s neck loosely as not to choke him.

“I’m good. I think...” Zexion said, tensing as Riku’s hands cupped around the backs of his thighs, holding his body steady against his back, and Zexion subconsciously tightened his arms around Riku’s neck and shoulders. “Are you sure you’re aright with this? I can—”

“You can shut the fuck up and let me carry you.” The boisterous laugh spilling over Riku’s lips earned a sigh from Zexion, which only seemed to fuel the bout of laughter. “You weigh less than the backpack, so just calm your ass down and enjoy the ride. And the view. It must be nice to see the world from a giant’s back.”

“For the record,” Zexion managed as his lungs began to relax their incessant screaming for air, his chest rising and falling more normally. Riku stood then, jolting the small frame of the younger on his back as he held him tightly to himself. “You aren’t _that_ much taller than I am.”

“Whatever.” Riku joked, beginning his trek towards the house once more, Zexion situated on his back. His thin legs draped over Riku’s hips, and he had to resist the urge to wrap his legs around the other’s upper thighs for a deeper sense of security. The last time he was carried like this was when he was six years old, and nearly collapsing from the long march his troop of rejects from the Zone had been enduring. Riku had been there, and he wondered silently if he remembered any of that.

An easy silence fell over the two of them as Riku walked towards the house, and the atmosphere was filled with the soothing sound of birds singing softly against the impending drape of evening. Zexion’s body had fallen into a homeostatic calmness, and his gasping breaths were soon replaced with slow, deep inhales and exhales. A heavy, sinking weight of exhaustion began to wrap its arms around his thin body, embracing him in a blanket of unexpected warmth. The gentle motions of Riku walking beneath him were strangely lulling, and Zexion found his eyelids and head to become painfully heavy. With a promise to himself he’d just rest his eyes, Zexion let his head rest lightly against Riku’s shoulder; unbothered by the protruding bones sticking out jaggedly from beneath his skin.

Riku, unbothered by the increasing weight of Zexion on his back, smiled softly and focused on taking easy, gentle steps that didn’t jar the younger around too much. Zexion’s breathing close to his ear tickled slightly, but when it surpassed the stage of deep, steadying breaths to shallow, sleepy ones, he wanted so badly to say, “I told you so.”

Figuring he could save it for another time, Riku covered the last few minutes of the walk home easily, holding most of Zexion’s weight as his body started healing the damage from overexerting himself today. Zexion’s thin arms around his neck and shoulders loosened their tight grip, but his lithe fingers found a handful of his shirt, bunching up around the fabric with minute twitches. As Riku finally reached the front door of the house, Zexion mumbled something unintelligible, whined, and tightened the grip around Riku’s shirt. He buried his face into the crook of Riku’s neck, small sounds of discomfort spilling over his lips while his legs began to twitch sporadically. Zexion’s chest pressed flush to Riku’s back gave him a direct line to his heartbeat, and he grew slightly concerned when the rhythm picked up once more; beating harder as he mumbled unintelligibly again.

Riku, cradling Zexion’s body gently, feared waking him, but he didn’t want to lay Zexion down while he was still wearing the heavy backpack. After safely bringing the two into the house, he shut the door tightly behind them, and walked to the middle of the open floor in the living room. Trying to gaze over his shoulder at the younger’s sleeping form, Riku craned his neck, only to have the thick crop of slate hair brush against his skin, the feeling reminiscent of being ticklish.

Zexion’s heart continued to hammer against his chest, and he gripped to Riku tighter, his arms now snaking around his shoulders with a fierce hold. Zexion’s entire being twitched under the pressing weight of whatever dream he was having, which seemed odd he was having one after falling asleep so suddenly. Entirely unsure what to do, Riku simply stood with a shaking Zexion clinging to his body, feeling the other’s hummingbird heartbeat thrum against him.

For a couple of moments, the room was bathed in an eerily still silence, broken only by Zexion’s faint breathing or the soft sound of his whines. Riku’s back and arms were tiring against the heavy weight residing on his back, and he feared he had no other option than to wake Zexion; lest he drop him flat on his ass.

Just as he was about to gently shake the other to draw him out of sleep, Zexion jolted against Riku’s hold, picking his head up as if he’d been yanked harshly from below the surface of unconsciousness by the roots of his hair. “Mmfph,” He groaned, fingers loosening around the fabric bunched up between them, and the iron grip of his arms going slack. “Are we here?” Words slurred ever so slightly, the sound made Riku chuckle, but he nodded.

“We are here. Have a nice nap?” The smugness in his tone wasn’t quite apparent to Zexion’s still foggy brain, and he grunted.

“No. Put me down.”

“As you wish, sire.” Riku knelt down, allowing Zexion to slide off of his back easily, though he wavered slightly after using his legs so soon after waking up. The dense weight of the backpack probably didn’t do him much justice either, and Riku made a quick grab for its worn straps. He helped Zexion slide the thing off of his back, and set it aside, finding it a bit comical as the other made a straight break for the mattress. He flopped down, gracelessly face first, and sighed deeply enough Riku might’ve thought it to come from his bones.

“What’re you feeling for dinner, Zexion?” The muffled whine of indifference made Riku laugh, and he headed towards the kitchen to pick through their cans of food. Something seemed off about the pile, however, as if it somehow seemed smaller. “Zexion, did you—no, you couldn’t have. There were…weren’t there?” He babbled to himself, counting the cans, and wondering if he’d miscounted originally. There were sixteen cans this morning, and now there were only eleven. “Well, what the hell?”

A bitter wind seemed to pass through the house at that moment, disemboweling the still atmosphere into something much more threatening. Riku glanced up, a knot twisting in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong. Terribly, horrifyingly _wrong._

“What the hell indeed… _Riku_.” That voice. That taunting, low voice, its tone seeping sourly into the aged wood, forcing the house to shudder on its foundation. “What the hell, _indeed._ ” Riku glanced up across the room, his teal eyes meeting quickly with a familiar glowering yellow. “Thank you for bringing this to us. Maybe you are good for something after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a reason this chapter is called 'Prologue', and I am very excited to show you why.
> 
> Also, side note, I'm going to be starting a new job in a couple of weeks, and in the interim while I wait for them to call me and schedule my orientation, I'm going to try and write as much as possible before I start working. I may go on a slight hiatus between now and then, but I don't know how it's all going to pan out yet. There's a good chance I'm looking at 40(+) hours a week of a physically demanding job and I'm going to be tired until I work my way into the swing of things. Just a head's up in case I suddenly disappear for a while. Please bear with me while I work through that, I promise I'll do my best to keep updating as I can.


	10. Hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zexion: Part I.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started a new job today, and while I get my training and schedule sorted out, updates might be slow for a while. Bear with me through that while I adjust, and I will reward with chapter updates in the future.

Time shuddered viciously against the tension falling over the room in a thick silence that dulled any connection to the world outside the front door. Riku, paralyzed with the hot anger flooding through his veins, gazed on with steely eyes as Saïx withdrew himself from his hiding spot in the bedroom where Zexion had once lay unconscious. Unsurprisingly, a taller, lankier frame followed loyally at his heels, and Riku felt the bitter sting of betrayal.

“You two. What the _fuck_ are you doing here? You abandoned and stole from me, you worthless assholes. I should kill you where you stand for having the audacity to show your faces again.” Zexion had since pulled himself up to sit on the mattress, eyes widening as he watched the scene unfold before him. Being unarmed, he knew himself to be of little help should these two strangers attack, but he was willing to try if the need arose. An air of danger tainted their auras, and burdened the atmosphere with a heaviness that put a weight on Zexion’s chest; the kind of uncomfortable weight that riles up the stomach and busies the mind with a hazy static.

“Ah, you must learn to let things go, Riku. Always the one to hold a grudge.” A chuckle holding a painfully sardonic tone passed easily over the lips of the first male; his long hair swishing behind him as he sported an indelible shade of blue the rivaled the slate uniqueness of Zexion’s own hair. The long tresses flowed freely down his back while the top layer was pulled into a petit ponytail at the crown of his head, and away from his face. He was clad in a dirtied pair of jeans a size too large, and a simple white tank stained to a stormy grey with thick splotches of rusty crimson splattered across the front. His feet were almost invisible beneath the rolled up cuffs of the jeans, but of what Zexion saw, he figured his feet were clad in a pair of boots similar to his own. “You couldn’t kill me even if you wanted to.”

Riku’s hands made a lightening quick grab for the pistol tucked into his waistband. He’d brought it along on their scavenging trip on the off chance there was any ammunition to be found, and it had remained there, unused, when the pickings were slim. “Just give me a fucking reason, Saïx. The same goes for you, Axel. I have all right to drop your worthless asses right now.”

Another chuckle, still taunting though biting with a cold edge, passed again over Saïx’s lips, and Zexion felt himself tense at the sound. These two must have been the partners that Riku had told him about during their initial meeting, and here they were once more to haunt him. Judging by how they’d emerged from the bedroom, it was obviously an ambush of some kind, but for what purpose he couldn’t tell. “Put the toys away, Riku. I overheard you tell him that you were out of ammunition. You never fail to amuse me. Always the big talker putting on a tough front, but _always_ failing in the end. I must say, the lack of spontaneity from you would be almost quaint, if it weren’t so infuriating.”

Zexion’s eyes noticed the darkening of Riku’s features, the mild shake of anger rippling up from somewhere deep inside of him. The warm teal colour in his eyes had hardened, solidified, and he shot a murderous glare towards Saïx. “Get the fuck out of here, both of you.” He lowered the gun, tucking it back into his waistband, and swapping it out the switchblade he’d stored in his pocket earlier after finding it on their scavenge. “Or I will slit your ugly throats and let those things outside lap your filthy blood from the floorboards. Ammo or not, I can still kill you.”

“Chill the fuck out, man.” The redhead, Axel, nearly snorted as he leant against the wall with one shoulder. His long arms, covered by the sleeves of a grey thermal shirt in the same dirtied condition as Saïx’s tank, were crossed loosely over his chest; making him the picture of calm disinterest. “We don’t have any beef with you. Not anymore, at least.”

“Then what the fuck do you want?”

Saïx’s eyes, a startling shade of liquid amber, grazed across the room before landing directly on Zexion’s face. His glare narrowed ever so slightly, putting the smallest crease between his thin brows mimicking the blue of his hair, and it was then that Zexion noticed the large x shaped scar marring his face. “I want him.”

“Why?” Zexion’s lips quivered around the word, his voice wavering as it crept up his throat and pooled in his mouth. “I have no idea who the fuck you are.”

“I’m sure Riku has told you.” Saïx’s thin lips, lined heavily with the wear of stress, pulled into a smirk that sent chills scurrying up each disc in Zexion’s spine. He stood from the mattress then, stumbling over it slightly as he backed away from the terrifying look eating away at his anxiousness. Saïx, in return, began taking a few strides towards Zexion, efficiently closing the wide gap of space he’d attempted to put between them. “I am Saïx Salvaterra. That one over there is Axel Saintsbury. We are the world’s best, and remaining few, smugglers.”

“Smugglers?” The word tasted odd on Zexion’s lips, and he looked quickly to Riku; noticing the way his defensive stance lessened to a look of shame. “What the fuck are smugglers and what do they want with me?”

“If you want something, it’s our job to get it and, well, smuggle it.” Axel answered from across the room, his adenoidal voice flippant as he pulled his hand up to his eyes, inspecting it as though his fingernails held some great fascination. “We get paid in guns, food, drugs—if the object is worth that much, that is.”

“Yes, as Axel said,” Saïx edged closer as he spoke until Zexion had backed himself against a wall. He felt a rising discomfort in the pit of his stomach, the feeling of being cornered like an animal began setting off an alarm inside of his head. “We collect things, smuggle them into or out of Zones, or simply pass them along to people we meet along the way. Technically speaking, we are the wealthiest people who thrive on this wasteland called Earth. All the weaponry, drugs, and food consumable for one person are at our fingertips. And recently, we were given an offer that would have been an act of downright stupidity to pass up on.” Saïx watched with a smug gleam shining across his hollowing eyes, boring his gaze straight through Zexion. “Did Riku forget to include that little detail about himself? How he spent his days with Axel and I killing, stealing, and smuggling goods into and out of Zones? I am not surprised. Work this this tends to turn a person off. I’m sure he wanted nothing more than to please you, hm? To do as he always does and put up a front that hides the true darkness of his deeds and ambitions.”

“That’s _enough,_ Saïx!” Riku shouted from the kitchen, his voice cracking with the force. “Get the fuck away from him. I don’t care what you want with him, but you’re not going to fucking get it. Tell your client people aren’t for sale.”

“Is that so, Riku?’ Axel piped up, lowering his hand, and flicking his acidic eyes to Zexion’s; a smirk on his lips. “I suppose Riku left out the little detail that we saved his sorry ass from being sold as some creepy guard’s pet in one of the Zones? See, he has a huge dislike of bartering people for material goods, but he’s helped us do it a few times when a cut of the spoils happened to be alcohol. What’s a baby for booze, huh?”

“I don’t care what he’s done.” Zexion spat, bracing his palms against the wall as Saïx drew uncomfortably close. The harshness of peeling wallpaper chewed at his back and hands, but he ignored it, steeling his gaze, and willing his heart to calm its erratic beating. One hand made a quick grab for the rusty kitchen knife he’d found earlier and stored in the gun holster, holding the tip at an arm’s length in front of him. Normally, Zexion would have preferred a switchblade or similar, but he reminded himself that his child self had once felled a man with a no more than a dull scalpel. “In this world, you have to lose your humanity if you want to survive; a lesson I’ve spent years learning the hard way. And fuck all if I’m going to judge somebody for their past deeds. But I am not for sale. You can fuck off to wherever it was you came from, because if Riku doesn’t kill you, I will.”

“What’d I tell ya?” Axel chuckled, the sound nasally and unpleasantly bitter to all the ears it fell on. “He is a vicious little shit. Maybe we should have brought the others with us.”

“Nonsense.” The calm, collectedness Saïx oozed in both tone and body language was intimidating, at the very least. “I can handle him myself. Axel, you have your orders. See to them.”

The clockwork precision of the next moment was enough to steal the breath from Zexion’s lungs. In the moment Saïx closed the distance between himself and Zexion, Axel drew a gun from the back of his pants, having kept it in the same fashion Riku did, and aimed the barrel at the his skull. Riku’s eyes went wide as he stared down the gun, and Saïx made a grab for Zexion while he was distracted.

“No! Fuck off!” Zexion attempted a dodge as his senses caught up, but having been backed into a corner gave him little option. He swung the blade at Saïx, but barely grazing his skin enough to do any damage. The taller male made a grab for Zexion’s arms, but he braced his forearm against Saïx’s wide chest to force him back. His arm shook at the weight pressing against it, but Zexion took advantage of the wide stance Saïx took to brace himself for an attack and delivered a hard kick to his crotch. The rigid sole of his boot swiftly met the soft flesh, and Saïx grunted as he fell to his knees.    

Zeixon attempted scrambling around Saïx’s downed body, only to find himself in a tight headlock before he had time enough to think. The other had made a vicious swipe against the back of his knees, efficiently knocking his petit frame down. Saïx wasted no time quickly shoving the knife aside as it left Zexion’s grip, and locked an arm around his neck; pressing against the not quite healed wound hard enough to make him wince.

“Saïx, let him go!” Riku bellowed from the kitchen, pushing against Axel, but finding the redhead to have no give. “Move, you prick!”

“Let me go! Get your fucking hands off of me!” Zexion screamed, thrashing wildly like a caged animal against the unrelenting grip to his neck. His hands came up to claw at Saïx’s arm, blunt fingernails digging ceaselessly into the other’s flesh. “Riku! Help me for fuck’s sake!”

“Stop screaming and relax.” Saïx commanded in a harsh voice, tightening his arm around Zexion’s neck as he displayed an impressive immunity to the slow trickle of blood beginning beneath Zexion’s nails chewing against his skin. “Riku cannot help you. Not unless you wish to see him executed like the dog he is.”

“Axel, you fucking traitor!” Riku screamed, raising the switchblade and lunging for the redhead. Axel, in a defensive move, grabbed for Riku’s wrist, fighting his thrashing to grab for the gun. “You fucking worthless traitors, the pair of you! I helped your sorry asses for years! Let him go, he hasn’t done shit to you! Kill me if you must, but get your filthy fucking hands off of him!”

“Tempting offer.” Zexion could feel Saïx digging around for something in the pockets of his jeans with his free hand as he taunted Riku. He withdrew something out of his line of sight, and he thrashed once more against the hold to his neck, nails still digging into his skin and drawing blood. It did him no good, only increasing the pressure on his throat and making it difficult, to the point of being almost impossible, to breathe. “But you could still be an asset to which neither Axel nor myself intend to waste so recklessly. We need this boy, Riku, for reasons you’ve let yourself go too pathetically soft to comprehend. I’m going to take him, whether your so-called humanity agrees or not. In the interim while the deal is transacted, Axel will ensure you stay put. Any hasty actions to save him, and he has orders to kill you. Axel?”

Zexion watched, horrified, as the redhead struck a debilitating blow across Riku’s face with the butt of the gun; even as he struggled against the harsh pushing against him. Riku’s nose crunched with a sickening audibility, and he fell to his knees, a hand rushing up to cover his face. Blood dribbled down between the slats of his fingers, staining his skin with a violent crimson. “Riku!”

“Hush, child.” Saïx commanded, his tone venomous. “He can do nothing for you, and you nothing for him. Now, this might sting for a moment.”

“Stop! Don’t touch me! Fuck! Let me go, you fucking coward!” Writhe as he might, Zexion was no match for the animalistic strength Saïx possessed. In that instant, the all too familiar pinch of needle prick radiated a cold fear up his arm where the skin had been broken, and he screamed while attempting to wriggle his way out of the chokehold. “What are you doing, you fuck! Stop! Ouch, goddammit!” A cold, metallic taste began to leak over his tongue, coating his tastebuds with the panic coursing through his body. An icy chill spread from his arm all the way to his neck, and dribbling down each pointed nodule of his spine. Little by little, his strength weaned, and he fell limp in Saïx’s arms.

“Zexion!” Riku’s voice sounded much further away than it should have, and the uproarious thrum of his heart began to drown out all sounds. “No! What’re you doing to him, you fuckers?! Zexion! Zex—”

“R…ik...u…” Try as he may to force the plea from his lips, it came out as a fragmented, jumbled sound, slurred heavily by the plaguing nausea and dizziness spreading from his spine to his brain. A cotton haze infiltrated his thoughts, and suddenly, he felt too calm to understand why his chest ached from the force of his heartbeat. Saïx let his body against the ground, the cold wood lashing out against his cheek. Zexion’s clarity become rapidly distorted, his vison suddenly unavailable to him as the dark veil of his eyelids dropped like a two ton weight. He swore his felt his body twitch once, twice, three times, but in the next instant, sensation fell to nothing but an overwhelming darkness.

 

_Life had never been kind to Zexion, and he began to wonder if any remote amount kindness he was to be shown had been expended in the six years his parents been alive to care for him. Just when he had believed to be at his lowest, there was always something else that could arise in an instant and distress him further. In this case, that distress happened to be Xigbar, who’d been tormenting and abusing him for weeks behind the backs of the other scientists. Considering his circumstances, they would turn a blind eye to the strange bruising around the edges of his mouth and on his wrists, they’d let his anguished cries for help in the dead of night fall on deaf ears. The others would not look to one another for the cause, they’d simply write ‘self-mutilation’ on his charts, and exchange quick words he needed to be cared for with a sharper eye. Not that anything would ever be done for him, after all, he was a freak who deserved little more than the deplorable accommodations so ‘kindly’ given._

_Zexion, after surviving the little incident in the Dangerous Ward, had been decidedly kept as an asset to science. He was a lab rat, nothing more, and became accustomed to the dehumanization that came along with the title. The scientists prodding him through the thick steel bars of his kennel would often share looks of fear, of disgust, wary of any attempt he might make on their lives from behind the bars built to house the most dangerous of captured animals; back when cages were actually used for animals and not humans._

_And now, he had become admittedly complacent. Demyx’s death and his recapture had taken an enormous toll on his strengths, both physically and emotionally, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stoke the dying flames of rebellion that lingered hotly inside him. Every night, when the lights fell and he awaited Xigbar’s arrival with anxious sweat running down his temples, he’d think of the sheer disappointment his parents would feel towards their son. Locked in a cage, smothered by chemicals that made him amenable to anything these horrid people could dish out, he was a pitiful heap of limbs and smothered rebellion. Enough anger still coursed through his veins to give some life to his deadened fight, but not quite enough control his thoughts so he was searching for a way out of this hell. He was tired, so inconceivably tired, the fight ran dry beneath the crushing weight of abuse and neglect._

_Nighttime, in particular, was the worst of the twenty four hours in Zexion’s day. He was as physically tired as he was emotionally spent, and it was mostly in part to the fact he had little time to rest after the lights went down. Most of the scientists didn’t find their way home until the wee hours of the morning, and even then, some lingered until the sun was beginning to grace the morning sky with a pink kiss of wakefulness. Xigbar was the last to leave, and consequently, the last to arrive in the morning. Being the eldest among the others after Ansem’s death, his blood on Zexion’s hands, he seemed to find a bit more leniency in the rules. Perhaps it was privilege, perhaps it was a rite of passage, but whatever the cause, it was a burden on Zexion._

_After the others had left and the building was vacant, save for the other Carriers locked up like animals, the flicker of a flashlight would illuminate the shine of the linoleum below the bottom of the cage. The hollow, deafening sound of boots across the sterile tile would echo like a menacing taunt, and Zexion would cower against the cage. The light would glare through the bars, illuminating his thin body, and Xigbar’s chuckle would fill the room; twisting his vacant stomach in a nauseating disgust._

_He’d learned what it meant to be obedient. Trained like a savage animal, Zexion could come when called, sitting on his knees on the harsh floor after Xigbar had unlocked and opened the cage. Waiting like a dog, hands folded in his lap like a schoolchild, he’d feel the harshness of the sterile gloves on his chin; tilting his head up so he could meet the single yellow eye glowering against the darkness._

_Zexion, shaking from malnourishment and anxiety, averting his eyes, he would receive a slap to the cheek for disobedience. “Right here. Look right here. Me.”_

_Again, he’d look, feeling his spine rigid with a tense disgust. Nothing sickened him more than the feeling of Xigbar’s gloved hands on his skin, the preface to his abuse. The gentle stroking of his thumb across his cheek, the guiding hand threading through the long locks at the base of his skull, it all sickened him. And yet, circumstance given, he could do nothing about it._

_“Please. I don’t wish to do this anymore.” The words spilled over his lips in a fragile exposure to the childish innocence nobody believed him to have. At eight years old, Zexion was beginning to feel the hard shell of a trained killer dissolve away, exposing the fleshy weakness beneath. He was still a child, and many, in light of his actions, had forgotten that. “Please, just let me be.”_

_“This is only punishment, kiddo.” Xigbar’s voice was a purr, a ripple in the thick velvet of the night. The darkness hid most of the expression on Zexion’s face, and he was thankful the hot tear cascading down his cheek would not be visible. “You brought this upon yourself. Honestly, how else would we train you?”_

_“For what cause though? Am I so important you must break me in this way?” The juvenile crack in his voice gave way to the fact he was holding back tears, but Xigbar was unmoved. “This is wrong, and you are aware of that fact. Yet, night after night, I am your pet. On my knees, serving you inexplicitly. Please, tell me why.”_

_“Because,” The tone of Xigbar’s words hardened viciously, and he tugged at the hair snarled around his gloved fingers. Zexion whimpered softly, clenching his teeth are twin tears leaked from the corners of his bloodshot eyes. “if nobody else has the balls to train you like the mongrel you are, I will. You are the reason Demyx was taken from me, and his tasks now befall you. The world doesn’t work in the way you think it does, kiddo. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but I’m half blind already. I can’t lose much more.”_

_“You still haven’t answered my question.” Zexion’s tone was soft, barely there, and he felt the hot bubble of anger rising into his chest._

_“I don’t have to answer to you, you’re forgetting that.” Not even the swallowing darkness could mask the hideous smirk on Xigbar’s lips. “Words don’t suit that pretty little mouth of yours.”_

_The nausea gripping at and wringing out his stomach was enough to blur any rational thought he may have had. But Zexion was so exhausted of night after night of abuse, and the other scientists treating the matter so lightly. He was not the first Carrier who was used in this way, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last. It tightened his throat, squeezing his lungs until his chest felt too small to house the gasping breaths he attempted to soothe to a normal breathing pattern. If he could only find a way to ruin this man without expending any energy, he could perish knowing at least some good came of his efforts._

_The task seemed nearly impossible, especially considering the humiliating position he was locked into. Fighting would only result in his hair being torn from its roots, and he’d come close to experiencing premature baldness once before. The pure unpleasantness of it all had left him stewing in his own shame for days, and he was finding it a difficult task to talk lately. After the abuse began, his brain seemed to handle the anguish by simply shutting down. He’d heard the scientists once before discussing the possibility of the most dangerous child on Earth becoming mute, and over hot cups of coffee, had themselves a hearty laugh._

_As for Zexion, he found no humor in the situation. He very well considered the possibility that he was, in fact, falling into a mute state because he simply couldn’t cope. It all spun his head in separate directions, flipping his world upside down to a disaster of anguished shame. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to communicate to some of the other scientists what happened behind these tiled walls and on these tiled floors when the lights went off. Zexion had once almost convinced one of the scientists, Vexen, of his mistreatment, but much to his chagrin, in came Xigbar to smooth talk his way out of any repercussion. Zexion was at his wit’s end with this life, and he so desperately wanted to escape._

_The desperate, unfulfilled desire always led his thoughts to his deceased parents. He had fallen so far down into a state of disrepair, he often found himself criticizing their choice to bring a child into this world. He knew from the stories his parents had told him, he was technically a mistake. His mother wasn’t supposed to get pregnant, and his father swore to his buddies in the Zone he hated children. Yet, as teenagers who could barely foster themselves, they were suddenly caring for an infant. While laying helplessly on the cold metal floor of the cage, silent sobs wracking his thin frame as sleeplessness plagued him like a malevolent phantom, Zexion often wished his parents had let him die. That they would’ve abandoned him, and split away from one another like it was meant to be. He often wished they had never met, and he had never been brought into the lives of two people who, in the end, valued him over all else. The kindness, the unadulterated love, his parents had shown him, it disturbed how he managed to cope with the endless cruelty he was burdened with now._

_But he often reminded himself that his parents wouldn’t have sacrificed themselves if they didn’t believe their son was destined to be, or to do, something remarkable. He had a purpose, a higher one, and this was merely at a bump in the road. He simply needed to battle the lethargy, the hopeless slump, and find a way to escape this hell. Sure, the first attempt had been a grand failure, but Zexion had never known himself to quit so easily. Perhaps it was the numbing drugs they gave him, perhaps it was the mentally taxing abuse, or perhaps an endless combination of it all that had changed his mindset so drastically. But this was not him, and Zexion, with each passing day, was arguably complacent though not at all content._

_With Xigbar’s hand squeezing against the minute definition of his jawline, Zexion refocused the distant haze in his eyes to the impatient yellow stare boring holes into his very soul. “Was something I said not clear enough to you?” He taunted the young boy at his fingertips, the hand on his jaw removed to grab for one of Zexion’s small, lithe hands; guiding it to the waistband of his slacks. “You have your task, and this isn’t anything new. Stop wasting my time.”_

_“Sir…” Zexion muttered in a soft tone, that singular word tasting like a vile poison on his lips. It was something Xigbar demanded he address him as, and the formality made him chew on the inside of his lower lip. With a sickened stomach and trembling hands, Zexion’s fingers fiddled with the button on Xigbar’s slacks, and the dirty feeling he’d come to know began to settle deep in his body. His teeth chewed harshly against the soft flesh inside of his mouth, and one of the sharp edges suddenly nicked the skin with a harsh bite. The deep metallic tang spread across his tongue, and Zexion cursed himself internally for drawing blood at the expense of anxiety._

_But as he worked the tight fabric down from embracing Xigbar’s pointed hips, his lethargic brain suddenly offered a solution to the problem. The answer was simple, simple enough it’d be right there all along, but he hadn’t had the drive to search for it. He was a Carrier, his blood was a toxin to an average person, it’s how the disease spread. Zexion knew, from overhearing conversations, Xigbar feared not death, but mindlessness. He feared becoming the thing he hated most, and would rather die than become undead._

_Zexion, with the spark inside of him urgently nudging at his tired brain, continued to chew his lip until the blood flow was enough to accumulate a small pooling in his mouth. He let it fester there a moment, until the bareness of Xigbar’s lower body presented before him was his cue to sacrifice any dignity he had left to the will of the elder’s pleasure. The thought alone made him weak with disgust, but tonight, he vowed to himself as the copper bite against his tastebuds hazed his brain with the blatant fury of revenge, would be the last night Xigbar would have mind enough to do this. He liked a little biting anyways, and if biting hard enough to break skin earned him a forceful gagging or a boot to the face; he’d take it gladly. It would only take a handful of hours before Xigbar would lose his mind, and allow Zexion to regain a piece of his own._

The nightmare jolted Zexion awake with a weighted nausea pressing its thick hands against his stomach, and he felt the ground below him spinning violently fast. His head lolled back, bringing an awareness to the hair hanging loosely against his bare skin as the long tresses tickled his shoulders. A chill began to worm its way under his skin, drawing visible shivers to the surface. He was grotesquely dizzy, faint from whatever it was Saïx had injected him with, and feeling the pain of a careless handling began to ease its way into his consciousness. No longer held under by the drugs, Zexion fought against the after effects, trying desperately to remember how to function consciously.

“Come on, you are almost there. You’ve been whining for the last forty five minutes, now it is time to come back.” Saïx’s voice echoed from somewhere around him, and Zexion clenched his eyes, suddenly aware that the darkness encasing his vision was the doing of his drawn eyelids. “Open your eyes now. We have business to attend to.”

Zexion let a gentle whine tumble gracelessly over his lips, finding the higher the level of consciousness he regained, the more aches and pains he could pinpoint to certain areas of his body. His shoulders were the main source of a burning ache, much more painful and prominent than the duller pains littering his petit frame. His brain was trapped beneath a thick haze of cotton, and focusing his consciousness to its full awareness was a tiring task.

“You are trying my patience.” Saïx mocked, and the sound of something metallic clinking filled his ears. “I can bring you forth other ways if you are too pathetic to do it yourself.”

“M’not…weak…” Zexion slurred, his lips feeling like weights pulling on his face. It was almost reassuring to know he was functioning at a high enough level to defend himself, but not being able to open his eyes yet was worrying. He hadn’t felt this consumed by wretched unconsciousness since the Center, and whatever Saïx had injected him with was lab grade, and potent. “…fuck…”

“You certainly have a mouth on you.” A toneless chuckled filled Zexion’s ears, and he groaned with how far away it sounded. The wooden creak of weight being removed from a chair echoed around his head, and soon an acute awareness was brought to his cheek with the sensation of gripping pressure. “Let’s see if I can’t wake you up.”

The pressure tightened, but only for a moment, and Zexion felt his heart clench in his chest at Saïx’s words. Something about the way his hand gripped his cheek, the bitter sting in his words, it was beyond threatening and tipping on the verge of malevolent. Zexion wanted to pull himself from beneath the darkness in that moment to protest whatever it was the other had in mind, but his body simply didn’t want to cooperate. Being unconscious was easy, it didn’t cause any pain, and that’s where his survivalist instinct decided to reside. Unfortunately for him, Saïx wasn’t going to have any resistance from his ‘guest’, and would bring him forth by any means necessary.

The means Saïx chose, he knew from the start, would not be pleasant. And step one in waking him up, involved removing his sense of gravity, and upending his body.

The moment the wooden back of the chair hit the floor, a shocking pain reverberated up every single disc and rib housed beneath the flesh of his back, and Zexion’s eyelids snapped back with a gasping breath. Whether he wanted to be completely conscious or not, he had no choice in the matter now. He was left laying helpless on his back as weighted dust settled around his body in a slow descent. He coughed harshly against the shock and the haze of dust, blinking rapidly to clear the thick, drug-induced haze from his eyes. His head throbbed viciously, threatening detonation beneath each pulse of his heart. Zexion attempted to move his arms and legs to shake the lingering lethargy of the drug out, but found himself immobilized.

“Ah, the tested and true never fails me.” Saïx stood above him, looking down on Zexion with a condescending glare. His golden eyes were violent against the dank atmosphere, and Zexion attempted averting his gaze to get a feeling for his surroundings. “Hey!” A swift kick to the side of his head nearly sent his eyes rolling, and Zexion felt the immediate ringing bellowing from inside of his ear. He had to blink in order to bring his brain back into connection with his eyes, and a sick feeling began welling in his chest. “Focus on me. I am all you need to know.”

“What…” Zexion gritted his teeth against the throbbing that had ballooned in his skull, trying to determine if the warm wetness oozing behind his ear was sweat or blood. “…the _fuck_ do you want with me.”

Saïx knelt down against what appeared to be a concrete floor littered with hay or straw, and put a hand beneath Zexion’s chin; tilting his head up so he had no other option than to look at Saïx with his full attention. “Your fire is intoxicating. It is certainly something Riku had too little of. He was always weak, a pathetic excuse for a survivor. You, however, you I could make use of. Your scars, they add a touch of danger to you. I must say, for having skin so grotesquely defaced, you are a pretty little thing.”

Those words. They resonated in Zexion’s head like the toll of bells, warning him this man was not to be trusted. Something from his memories tugged eagerly at him, reminding him of the abuse Xigbar had subjected him to. It twisted his stomach so sickeningly, Saïx’s hand against his chin felt like a thousand degree burn. He attempted to jar his neck, and free himself from the other’s grip in preservation of his sanity. This experience with this man would not be a pleasant one, and he felt the innate desire for Saïx’s blood on his hands.

“Ah, ah.” Saïx cooed wickedly, squeezing Zexion’s chin so hard he swore there would be bruising the moment he took the grip away. He didn’t fight it, but the heavy heave of his chest gave way to the anger bubbling up from inside of him. “Calm down. You belong to me now, that is, until my team contacts the buyer. It was a lot of work tracking you down, Zexion. I was beginning to think you were more trouble than what the client was offering for services rendered, but I see now what a prize you are. You have a sweet face, delicate features, even below that coarse shell. Come now, let me see what you have to offer.”  

“Get your fucking hands off of me, you fucking pig.” Zexion wanted to spit in Saïx’s face, but his mouth was so dry, he felt as though he were gargling sand. The harsh, grating sound of his voice was almost unfamiliar to his ears, but he looked past that. There were more pressing matters he needed to look to than how gruff he sounded. “I am not yours, I belong to no man, no woman, no deity. You can pretend all you fucking wish, but I will be no one’s plaything.”

“Won’t you now?” Saïx grinned, the look so horrifically daunting it nearly drew the breath from Zexion’s lips. The sharp points of his canines glinted against the dull light, the pull on his lips more a snarl than a smirk. A look on somebody’s face so feral was bound to shake even the strongest of wills. “Your hands and legs are bound to a chair, and you’ve been stripped of your clothing. Whatever I say you am, you have no resource, no power to argue. Fight, and see what befalls you. I recommend you simply relax and let me examine you.”

Zexion hadn’t taken into account anything beyond Saïx’s hand on his body, but suddenly the chill that had rippled through him earlier made sense. Now that attention had been brought to the fact, Zexion could feel the splintering discomfort of a chair digging into the bare skin of his ass, the way his hair had been ripped from the neat little bun and hung against his shoulders, the tight binds on his wrists and ankles that were immensely uncomfortable. A tight pain resonated through his joints, and Zexion felt so horrifically exposed he wanted no more than to fight against the binds and cover himself.

“What kind of sick fuck _are_ you?” He asked in a harsh tone, glaring at Saïx as the other pulled his hand from his chin, only to grab the back of the chair and right it. Zexion felt his toes graze against the scratching hay on the floor, and his eyes scanned his surroundings hastily before Saïx could steal his focus. There was only a single lantern lit and propped up on a small side table beside another chair, and little beyond what was directly in front of him could be seen. Based on what he _could_ observed, however, Zexion assumed he was in a barn. Having at least some bearing of location was a comfort, but not a very large one.

“Is that anyway to talk to me after I’ve been so hospitable to you, Zexion?” Saïx’s footsteps were heavy, resounding echoes that bore a great intimidation as he walked around the back of the chair. He came to stand in front of Zexion’s body, watching curiously as the other struggled against the binds. This did little more than increase the pulling ache on his joints, but Zexion was determined to free himself and gut Saïx like a fish out of water. “It’s of little use to struggle. Sit still for a moment and let me look at you.”

“No! Fuck off!” Zexion prayed the binds on his legs would snap so he could deliver a swift kick right where it would hurt most. He felt sick, and the helplessness that came along with being bound was no help. “What have you done with my clothes?”

“They are stored separately elsewhere. The buyer will decided whether he wants to keep them or not. I tend to throw in a small fee for accessories like that, so there is no guarantee you’ll ever get them back. That is a very nice holster you have there, though, so I may very well keep it for myself. You know, I have the perfect gun for that very holster. Perhaps I’ll show it to you tomorrow.” Saïx strode off into the darkness, only to return a moment later with a stained white cloth cradled in his hands. “Now, before I can assess your price, I’m quite tired of your mouth. You have an attitude, which I’ll certainly have to warn the buyer about. Perhaps in the interim while we locate them, I can make you more docile.”

“Get that thing away from me! No! Fuck off!” Zexion thrashed in the chair, harshly enough it caused the legs to squeal against the floor. Saïx merely smirked as he fought against the thick rope holding him to the chair, and took confident steps around to the back of Zexion.

His lips were soon at Zexion’s ear, voice low and harsh. The edge of the cloth soon pressed against Zexion’s lips, and the sheer force yanking back forced his mouth open. Zexion gagged at the vile taste touching his tongue instantly- stale vomit, rank blood, and sour cloth –and wailed as he thrashed his head back and forth viciously. It was no use, however, as Saïx brushed his long, free hair to the side in order to tightly knot the cloth at the base of his. “There now. You can whine all you wish, but nobody will hear you out here, and so it is pointless. You belong to me now, Zexion. Under my care, I can do what I please, when I please to you. Don’t believe me? I will make your life a living hell. I know how to make a Special Forces Agent cry, and I’m sure I could break your will with half as much effort. Quit your pathetic whining before I have to ruin my fun and knock you unconscious again.”

Zexion’s chest began to rise and fall heavily with his panicked breathing. His teeth ground against the cloth pressing against his mouth, simulating his taxed salivary glands and bringing a bit of drool into his mouth. How many other people had been here, he wondered. How many people’s mouths had this cloth touched before it was pressed against Zexion’s? He felt his heart beneath his ribcage screaming at him to fight, but in this pathetic position, he could do very little. Saïx had full control now, and he couldn’t even scream. Sitting so naked and exposed with this filthy rag in his mouth tripped his gag reflex, and his stomach heaved, head dropping down with slumped shoulders.

“Oh, the client will certainly like that.” Saïx cooed, chuckling darkly as he watched with a cautious eyes as a thick string of drool slipped past the cloth, rolling past Zexion’s lower lip, and dripping off of his chin to create a small spot on the dusty floor. “I’ve known him for many years, and he likes when his little playthings have a strong gag reflex.” The words struck Zexion in all the wrong ways, and again his empty stomach heaved, pushing more drool from his flushed lower lip.

“You know, if I wasn’t going to make such an enormous personal gain from this, I would keep you for myself. Bound and gagged, you look very helpless. I would like to see what you’d look like with a full dressing of rope here,” Saïx came to stand directly in front of Zexion, running a single finger across his clavicle before drawing down across his stomach to touch his hip. “and here.” He followed the same tracing path, drawing on the opposite side. “I bet with your hands bound behind you, you would look just so… _delicious._ ”

Zexion made a disgusted sound around the gag, picking his head up and glaring at Saïx with bleary eyes hazed from the violent gagging. “Oh, I know. Life must be so hard, hm? I bet you’ve never even kissed another person. Which would mean you are absolutely virginal. If you weren’t fetching such a pretty price, I would take you for myself. I am, however, not allowed to damage the merchandise, and so I must settle for this.”

Saïx’s wide hand met Zexion’s chest, spreading his fingers and lightly running them down across the muscle and bone definitions. Zexion screamed from behind the gag, fighting against the hand on his body. He hated this, hated it so violently he feared he may burst into flame right then. Saïx merely wore a look of displeasure, withdrawing his hand and standing to his full height.

“I see you are not prepared to cooperate. That’s fine, this is your choice.” He strode to the small table, gathering up the lantern and tossing a warning glare Zexion’s way. “You’ll have time to reevaluate your cooperation overnight. Goodnight, Zexion.”

With that, Saïx walked a couple of feet to what appeared to be the barn door, grabbing the handle, and yanking back the wide metal door with a grunt. He passed through the small opening easily, and from the opposite side, sealed away any light. The sounds of a lock being fastened echoed from behind the thick sheet metal, and Zexion was plunged into pitch darkness so potent he felt a chill settle into his very core. The strangling fear of being abandoned and exposed so horribly bubbled up from beneath his chest, and Zexion was biting against the gag as he screamed until his throat went raw.

Clenching his eyes, Zexion heaved a sob, thick tears rolling down his cheeks. He screamed once more against the gag, fighting the ropes angrily. The chair squealed and squeaked against the barn floor, but the ropes had no give. Zexion could feel the dire hopelessness of the situation settling into him, and his chest began to ache against the force of his screaming. Sitting naked as the day he was born, bound to a chair, and surrounded by a smothering darkness, Zexion felt his entire world collapse around him. He threw his body forward as a loud sob spilled messily over his lips, straining his back against the hold on his wrists.

Nothing frightened Zexion more than a situation where he had no feasible way out. And here he sat, bound to a chair, and shaking in near convulsions at the sheer force of his terrified sobs. He had never been frightened, not even after watching his parents die, yet this darkness was too dark to put words to; and it became an embodiment of all he feared. His screams would go unheard, and he was as defenseless as an infant at the mercy of a merciless man.

Death never frightened Zexion, but the journey to the cold embrace paralyzed him, and left an unbroken man in tattered shambles. Sobbing and shaking, unconsciousness came after his body became too tired to withstand the fear, and simply shut down.

His last thought was of Riku, and a silent plea for an absence of a nightmare…now that he was living one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an idea to split this into a couple parts based on the character. When I get the chance, I'll need to work it out more.

**Author's Note:**

> I was actually inspired to write this based on the game The Last of Us. I'm hoping I'll be able to sit down more often and throw out a couple chapters, (or, hell, even just one), per month. I've picked this over with a fine tooth comb, so here's to hoping I didn't miss any major grammatical errors. Leave me a kudos or a comment if you like this, every bit of feedback is what helps kick my confidence up a notch.


End file.
